


Sing for Absolution

by ShadowBlazer



Series: Sing for Absolution [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Alternate Universe - Small Town, F/F, F/M, Gen, Magical Realism, Mystery, POV Alternating, Slow Burn, Tragedy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-09-22
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:47:37
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 25
Words: 121,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9604637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadowBlazer/pseuds/ShadowBlazer
Summary: Lucina starts to wonder about the town pariah, Severa, who offers her a ride on a burning lonely road in the summer, and why a girl she used to consider a friend has grown so distant. Severa is uneasy that Shepherds High top student has taken a sudden interest in her and the attention it attracts, especially since Severa has a connection to the death of Lucina's cousin.  [Small Town AU]





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This was actually part of my random collection of short stories, but after writing three chapters of the same world, I realized that I was more invested in the AU than I'd thought. Some of the chapters will be the same as The Salt in Our Scars, though slightly modified to fit in more with the story, like this first one. If you've read it before, feel free to skip forward. There will probably be some unexpected darkness and comedy in this, sometimes in the same scene, because that's the way I roll. Also, credit to Muse for the story's title. Usual disclaimer: I don't own Fire Emblem Awakening or any of its characters.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy, and if you have any feedback/thoughts about the story, please leave behind a comment below. Cheers!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina and Severa reacquaint themselves on a strange road not far from home.

Everyone in town know what the kids say about the priest's daughter.

Severa peers at Lucina over the top of her sunglasses as she drives slowly beside her. “Do you know who my father is?”

Lucina hums, wiping sweat away from her eyes while walking under the blistering noonday sun. Her trek along the town's main road from the fields to her home was much hotter than she anticipated and the road is conspicuously bare of trees, as if the town's founders had feared an attack by bandits in the woods. “The priest, correct?”

In a town as small as Ylisse, everyone knew who each other was from the diplomatic guidance of Mayor Emmeryn to the bar owned by the easy-going Gaius to the beautiful priest who ran the church. And his infamous daughter.

The girl in question glances sidelong at Lucina, driving her convertible so deliberately that they can hear the crunch of gravel beneath the tires. “And you've heard of my reputation?”

Lucina gives her a strange look. Every teenager is familiar with the furious girl who skips class, makes money in drag races, and wears clothes that show off enough skin to make the boys gape. Not that it takes much convincing. Between her abrasive attitude and disdain for others, it's not a surprise that most kids stay away from Severa Faulkner like she could cut into their flesh with her words. Which some think she can. It's a contrast to her mother, who is one of the most beloved teachers at Shepherd High, coaching every girls sport team and inspiring students to take the breadth of her classes from home ec to literature. Her daughter is never seen in them though.

It hurts Lucina slightly that Severa chooses not to remember that they used to be friends. 

She tilts her head to look at the girl in the car, dressed in a thin, low-cut tank top and possessing a layer of something odd behind her scowl. She almost looks nervous. “I don't think it's possible to go to school and not hear about you,” she says, neutrally. 

Severa snorts and slams back into her seat. She doesn't look at her. “And you're still talking to me, because...?”

“You started it first.” Lucina grabs the top of her soccer jersey and wipes her brow with it. She's slightly disgusted to find the material already moist. “And you pulled up alongside me,” she points out.

“Because what kind of idiot walks along the main road under the summer sun?” Severa glares at her, pretty features twisted into a semi-permanent scowl. “It's over 30 degrees.”

Lucina shrugs, although she can feel the heat rush to her face. That might be the sun stroke though. “My bike broke down back a kilometre or so. Also, the roof to your car isn't up either.”

In fact, Severa's skin along her arms and shoulders are already turning pink from the exposure to the sun. She would burn shortly if she continue on like that for even another ten minutes. Why is her roof down? Also, how does a priest's daughter get a convertible out here? Severa doesn't seem to want to answer.

“Why are you even out here in the first place?” The driving girl grits out.

“I like going out to the fields and the woods on my own. It helps me think. Why are you here?”

Another question that Severa doesn't answer.

Lucina wipes at her face again. She opens her school bag and pulls out her water bottle, the last of water sloshing around with a lazy gurgle. When she swallows the tepid water, there's a distinct sense of dissatisfaction. “Would you happen to have water?”

Severa snorts, looking away. “No.” She goes silent as the car and Lucina slowly edges down the rough road. “You're going to die of dehydration if you keep going like this. Town's another three kilometres.”

Lucina waves off her assertion. She probably wouldn't die, per say. “How kind of you to care.”

Severa flinches as if struck. She glances away, sweat matting strands of hair to her forehead, cheeks, and neck. Lucina could see the perspiration beading down the exposed skin and into her cleavage, which suddenly made her uncomfortable.

“I know who you are. And you know me.” Lucina says, mostly to distract herself.

“Of course, I do. Everyone knows the niece of the mayor and the daughter of the principle.” Severa stares ahead, gripping her wheel tightly. Her knuckles have gone white. “Most perfect student to ever come along in Ylisse's history. A's in everything and in every single school club. Star of the soccer team. Is there anything you can't do?”

Lucina smiles, grimly. “I can't fix a bike.”

“Or think to call for help, apparently.”

Lucina scratches at her cheek. “Actually, I broke my phone last week.” While cutting fruit. That's not a story she plans to share with anyone. “I'll be okay. I wouldn't want to ask anyone to burden themselves trying to help me correct my mistakes.”

She swears she hears Severa mutter “Oh my gods, you cannot be real” before driving a little ahead of her and stopping the car altogether. She opens a passenger-side door. “Get in.”

Lucina peers at the door and the girl curiously. “Why?” From the looks of the other girl, Lucina wouldn't get yet another answer.

Severa's jaw is tense, although she doesn't make eye contact. Her whole body is rigid, on the edge of fleeting like a small animal watching for an attack. Her shoulders hunch together. Her eyes look so sad.

Lucina remembers what the kids at school say about the priest's daughter.

She looks shocked when Lucina sits down beside her. “You're actually accepting a ride? From me?”

Lucina peers at her from the corner of her eye. “You did offer. Did you mean it?”

Severa huffs. “Of course.” She presses a button that makes the roof behind them lift up and cover them, although Lucina is still puzzled about why she had the roof down in the first place. She veers into the centre of the road before accelerating, the faded fence posts alongside the roads blurring into a irregular pattern of brown. Her hands are steady as she handles the wheel. There's a tremble in her jaw that Lucina finds fascinating, like the slope of her nose and the curve of her mouth. The other girl seems to find her equally as engaging if the frequent glances out the corner of her eye mean anything. But perhaps they don't.

They drive the rest of the way in silence, and Lucina lets Severa take her home.


	2. Intro

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa dreams about a memory that disturbs her in her past. Also, she has a weird first day at school after being back from summer vacation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there is some graphic violence in this chapter, so you can quickly skip that paragraph if you prefer.

Severa has been to the church in Valm before. 

There's something about the glass windows in the building that filters the sunlight into a dull light, turning everything a shade of grey. The beams vault high above, like the rotted, creaking bones of an ancient carcass. At the front, a pulpit with peeling black paint stands alone while the pews sit before it, made of darkened wood and carved with extensive skill. If not for the ashy cast of the light through the windows, the inside of the church would almost look bearable instead of like a place long forgotten and abandoned. The outside is a moden white building with wooden panelling and solid, tall doors that require two men to open. Her father decided to take her mother and her there to visit an old friend of his—the deacon who runs the church.

They visit on a Saturday, as they knew it would not be busy then. Their car blows out a tire on the way there, and it's only through the miracle of Naga that they didn't spin out into a nearby tree. Or so her father says. 

A pair of men stop to help them. One had blue eyes and an easy smile while the other had short, close-cropped hair and grey eyes with a tight expression that only relaxed when he looked at the other man. The friendly one introduces himself to her father, shakes both his and her mother's hands, and offers the spare tire in their trunk. He laughs at the story of the tire blowing out and ruffles her hair when he spots her. She hates that and swats at his hand when he tries to do it again.

His eyes soften when she does that. He mentions how he's always wanted children.

When her father gently asks why he doesn't have any, he glances at the man beside him and merely replies that life had other plans for him.

The serious man gives her a nod in acknowledgement before shuffling off to the trunk to retrieve the spare.

Her parents thank the two men profusely for replacing their tire, and the men invite them to a large celebration happening on the main streets of Valm this evening for people of their persuasion. Her mother's taken back while there's a faint smile on her father's face. Severa's about to ask what's so strange when the laughing man with the blue eyes ruffles her hair again while the serious one drags him away. She huffs and states that she doesn't like him, though his friend seems all right. Properly dignified and serious, like a real man should be.

The stranger grins and cheekily remarks that he hopes to see her there. He and the other man take off in their car, and her father has his hands clasps together as if in prayer for them. When her curious mother prompts him on what he was praying for, her father answers that he doesn't know. He just felt like he needed to ask Naga to watch over them.

They get in their car and make it to Valm without anymore incidents.  
__

Deacon Matthews is a portly man with greying, close-cropped hair and glasses. He smiles often and at Severa with a pain in his eyes that makes the young girl wonder. 

The deacon invites her family to the back room where the walls are stacked with bookshelves and two plush armchairs sitting in front of mahogany desk. Her mother and father sit down with Cordelia trying to lift Severa into her lap, but the girl squirms. 

Severa hops off her mother's lap. “I don't want to sit in here and listen.” She points outside towards the front of the church. “I want to go out there.”

Her father frowns and is about to reply when the deacon chuckles. “Father Gregory is out there. He would be able to take care of her if she wants to wait outside.” 

“Very well. Severa, you can go but stay inside the church until we come get you,” her father says while her mother kisses the top of her head and gives her a brief hug. 

Severa wipes the kiss off from her hair and leaves the boring meeting to her parents and the deacon. She exits from the side of the pulpit and her eyes catch on the leather-bound book sitting on its dark surface, looking much used, save for the polish of gold worked into its cover.

"Hello there. Are you lost?" A solemn-looking priest with grey eyes and reddish-blond hair surfaces from her side, nearly startling the young girl out of her skin. He doesn't look unkind at least. "Are you looking for your mommy and daddy?” His accent is thick, and Severa doesn't know where it comes from.

Severa shakes her head and skips away from him to push herself onto a pew. “They're talking with the deacon here, and I got bored so I came out here.” She kicks her feet while sitting on the wooden seat.

The man smiles. “So, you're Father Libra's and Miss Faulkner's.” 

“And you're Father Gregory,” Severa guesses.

The priest looks surprised. “Father Matthews must have told you about me.” He smiles as he sits down on the bench, giving her some distance. “Did he tell you I came here recently by myself?”

Severa frowns. “No mommy and daddy?” 

Gregory laughs, “No. They're no longer with us. I do have a younger brother, though he's a bit of hothead and his English isn't as good as mine. I'm hoping he'll settle down with a fine lady to calm his temper.”

Severa thinks of the helpful men her family met earlier and how much them looking at each other reminds her of the way her mother and father do. "What about a man? Can two men marry?”

He pauses, thinking. His words are slow in coming. “I believe that marriage is only between a man and a woman in the eyes of Naga. The answer is the same for two women.”

“Oh.” Severa doesn't understand why it feels like her stomach is sinking towards her shoes. She watches the plastic tips as they swing up and down. “How come?”

The priest hesitates. “Naga's teachings have only mentioned a union between men and women. Though they inspire us to have love for everyone, they also teach us to hate sin. And any marriage that is not between a man and woman is a sin against Naga's intentions.”

Severa opens her mouth to respond, remembering her father's lectures. "But doesn't Naga teach us to love everyone? Why would she tell us to love some but not others that she made?"

The man looks uncomfortable. “I'm afraid that question may be too much for our talk. Why don't you ask your father, little one? He knows more about Naga's teachings than even I do.” 

Severa makes a defiant sound in her throat and turns away. Father Gregory shakes his head and looks up at the entrance to the back room where her parents are emerging. “Looks like they're done.” He pats her back and gently shepherds her towards them. "Your girl is sharp of mind. And I suspect sharp of tongue too." He claps her father on his shoulder. "You'll have one heck of a conversation on the way back."

Her parents look between Father Gregory and her curiously, but the deacon ushers them out with a hearty laugh before either can comment. 

"My apologies for the hasty goodbye, friends, but our church must make preparations for the celebrations happening tonight in downtown Valm. You should drop by when you get the chance." He bids them farewell, standing at the opening of the two great doors. "Oh, and Libra. Remember what I said. You can only bless her with as much of Naga's guidance as she's willing to follow. Some cannot be helped until they learn to help themselves for their own good." A sad expression comes on his face as he waves to them, becoming a small, lonely figure at the top of dirty white stairs. 

Severa peers at her parents' faces as they speak quietly under their breath. 

Her father taps a finger to his forehead in thought. "I don't fully agree with him."

"Nor do I, but you do have to admit that she is making things hard for herself, arriving so suddenly and with a young child." Her mother shakes her head. "I'll bring Severa over next weekend to see if they can be friends. Her little girl looks like she could be scared of her own shadow." 

Severa stops in the middle of the street and thrusts her hands on her hips, mimicking her mother's pose from a few nights ago when Libra kept Severa up too late from reading bedtime stories. "I can hear you!"

Libra smiles at her. "Yes, it seems like your mother forgot to ask your permission before making her own plans. Do you want to make a new friend?"

The young girl sniffs. "I guess, but I say when we go." 

Her father looks amused while her mother sighs. She says, "We can talk about that later. For now..." She and Severa's father grab the surprised girl by the hands and begin walking forward towards some streets filled with bright colours and ornate architecture. "...let's go have some fun." 

Her father and mother take her down, to her surprise, to the celebration the two strangers spoke of earlier in the day. When asked why, her father smiles and says that Naga encourages love in all forms, and he wants her to see that for herself. 

Severa is confused. Especially when Father Gregory told her otherwise. She holds onto her parents' hands as they make their way towards the suggested place, and the young girl frowns, feeling that something isn't right. The streets pass before her eyes, and her father reassures her than the main place for the celebrations is few moments away.

“Daddy,” Severa's grip tightens on her father's hand, “can two women marry? Or two men?”

Libra looks at her in surprise. Before he can answer, screams ring out around the corner from them, and her mother and father look at each other. Severa hears the yells again accompanied by jeers, and she breaks free of her father's hold and darts ahead to their source. 

Figures dressed in black robes congregate in the middle of the street, hoods heavy on their faces. There's a strange white patch on their back that looks like three pairs of eyes marked with dark lines that makes the young girl feel like she's being watched. Of course, that doesn't compare to the shouting and screaming as people flee from them while the figures sneer and haul them back, the huddle of terrified young faces in the centre of the mob, or the streak of blood across grey cobblestones as two men are pummelled with thick batons, the teeth of one man scattering across the ground as a blow strikes him across the face.

A tall man in the dark robe plants his foot on the broken man's back. His voice comes out flat and low. "Disgusting." He raises his baton, and the other figures follows suit. 

Severa watches as the mob nearly beats the two men to death. They look terribly familiar.

Her father's grip on her shoulders tightens before he pushes her to her mother. “Cordelia, watch her. Call the police.”

Her mother glances at him before her eyes dart to the crowd. “Watch yourself too.” She flips out her phone and begins to call.

He smiles grimly before pushing through to the centre of the mob. Severa feels fear spike down to her stomach. She tries to chase after him, but her mother holds her back. “They'll hurt him.”

“No. They won't lay a finger on him.” Severa feels her mother bring her close and slide a hand over her eyes. “I'm sorry, Severa. I don't want you watching this.” She hauls her daughter backwards while talking into the phone. 

She squirms and tries to buck off of her mother's hold until she hears the mob roar while two men scream in the background. There's a clamour rising ominously until there's a sudden sharp snap, a man's whimper, and sudden silence from the crowd. Her father's voice rises in the quiet, so angry and sharp that each bite of his words feel like hammer blows to her senses. 

Severa's mother tugs her away and doesn't let go until they're in some part of town where the lights are cranked up so high that it blinds them as police cars speed past them on the streets. Their headlights shine on her mother's face, and Severa can see the tight set of her jaw, the narrowness of her eyes. 

Severa looks up in her mother's exhausted face. “Where's Daddy?”

Her mother hums, tonelessly. “We'll see him in a few hours, honey. He's going to be busy at the police station for a bit to help those two men.” She sweeps the strands from Severa's face. “Let's go get something to eat while we wait for him, okay?”

They paw at their food at a diner far away from the scene before her mother checks her watch with a worried look on her face. She sighs and takes them back to the car parked by the church, and Severa throws a fit because she doesn't want to leave without her father. 

“We're not leaving him. I just need to drop you off at a friend's before picking him up, since it's getting late.” Her mother looks tired as she drives into the suburbs of Valm. “We're going to see a close friend of mine from...before. You'll like her. Her name is Cherche, and she has a boy named Gerome around your age. You'll make a new friend.”

Gerome and her do not become friends. The silent boy glares at her from behind his mother at the front door as if blaming her for invading his space. Which she technically is, though not of her own volition.

Cherche hugs her mother warmly. There's the start of lines forming around her eyes. “It's been ages since...” She trails off as Severa's mother shakes her head. “Well, since we last saw each other. Where is your husband?”

“He got involved in stopping a fight downtown.” Her mother's words come out slowly, hesitantly.

Cherche's eyes narrow. “A fight? Was it with people in hoods and dark robes?”

“Yes!” Severa pipes in. “And they were hurting the two men who helped us!”

"The Grimleal." Cherche pales and glances at her mother. “Cordelia, be careful getting involved with anything to do with them. They have people in a lot of public and powerful places. They caught two girls last week and—” Her breath catches. “Where are you going?”

Cordelia says, “I'm going down to the police station where Libra will probably be.” The pointer finger on her right hand twitches for some reason. “Can you watch Severa for tonight?”

“Of course.” Cherche smiles at the young girl, though something in her expression wavers when she glances at Severa's mother. “We have a spare bedroom that you can use. Come on in.” She fusses over Severa before stepping out to the front yard to whisper with Cordelia. Whatever they're talking about seems serious as the pair wear grim expressions and their utterances are sharp and pointed. 

Cordelia shakes her head while Cherche looks very worried. She pulls Severa's mother into a tight hug and whispers into her ear. Cordelia nods and comes back to embrace her own daughter for so long that Severa wonders what's wrong.

“Be good, Severa. I'll grab your father and see you soon.” Her mother smile, though there's something tight in her eyes.

As Severa watches her drive away, she has the distinct feeling of terror as if she's would never see her again. She's inconsolable, though Cherche stays with her in the spare bedroom until she falls asleep. Gerome, begrudgingly, gives her a spare blanket that helps her calm her nerves. 

When both her mother and father come to pick up her in the morning, she launches herself into their arms, holding onto them so tightly, they have to pry her off a few minutes later in order to thank Cherche and her husband properly. 

Her mother whispers something to Cherche, and the latter blanches. "Gregory was involved?" She glances at the doorway to see Severa listening in, and moves the conversation with her mother farther into the yard. Which is fine, because Severa turns her attention to her father who approaches her.

There's a dark bruise on her father's face, and the knuckles on his hands are red and scraped. He looks tired, but he smiles so brilliantly when she runs up to him.

"Daddy, I missed you. Are you okay?

"Nothing that being with my wife and daughter cannot fix." He kisses her on the top of her head. "Are you okay, heart?"

Severa dodges the question. "What happened to the two men?" 

Libra's smile slips off of his face. "They're being taken care of." 

"And the bad ones?"

Something clenches in Libra's jaw. "They will be too."

"Why did they want to hurt them?" Severa drops her eyes. "Were those two men who helped us bad?"

"No. They did nothing wrong." Libra's tone is sharp. He relaxes and turns her daughter around to face him while Cordelia glances at them before moving ahead to give them some space. "There is only evil in those who choose to harm others. Remember that evil has no future. They will be wiped out by Naga's light when the time comes."

Severa remembers the brutal swings, the sheer hatred in the hunched figures. "But why did they hurt them?" she repeats. 

"Sometimes, people cannot tolerate what they don't understand, and fear what they don't know." Her father rubs a hand over his face. "I'll tell you about it when we get home, because it's a long talk. Is that all right, Severa?"

He never does tell her, because they find out when they get back that Owain has been missing for two days.  
___

Severa wakes up from her nap behind the school lunch building in a nearby stand of trees. A young girl with a nervous expression and a strange charm consisting of polished, round objects in her hands peers over her, biting her lower lip.

Severa sighs and sits up, stretching as she does so. “Did I miss class, Noire?”

“Almost.” The word is whispered shyly. Noire glances at her before looking away. “I thought you'd be here, so I came to wake you up before lunch was over. You wouldn't want to skip the first day of classes.” A frown crosses her face when she peers at her friend's face closely. “You look like you had a nightmare.”

Severa rubs a heel of one palm into her eye. “Just some memories.” She stands. Her neck feels sore. “Please tell me we have something easy next class.”

“Biology.”

Fuck. Why is Severa taking that again?

She makes her way towards the school with Noire close behind. “I hate Mrs. Clearwater. She's all about for science this and for science that. And last year, she gave out way too much homework.” Also, she insists on wearing a hat with an overly large brim to teach. What was up with that?

“She was really nice about helping you if...if you go after class to ask about the assignments.” A flush courses across Noire's cheeks. “Sometimes, I ate lunch there...for help.” Her eyes drop, and something like shame floods into her face.

Severa bumps into her friend gently with her shoulder. She can't stand it when Noire looks like that. “I'm not going to judge you about wanting better grades. Naga knows that my mom would love a daughter with your work ethics.” 

Something in Noire's eyes still burns, and she looks away. “It's not about the help.”

Severa glances away, uncomfortable. She knows. “How's your mom's shop?” she ventures, carefully.

Noire lifts one shoulder in a shrug. “We're getting by.” She's almost tearing apart the charm in her hands. “How are things with your parents?”

Severa has never been so glad to arrive at the class doors. She signals to Noire that she'll answer the question later and takes a seat near the windows. No one says hi to her, which is as it should be. 

Noire casts her an apologetic look and sits closer to the front with the studious Nah. Severa waves it off with a careless gesture. She's not going to blame her friend for wanting to see the board better than where Severa's sitting. Thankfully, that moron Inigo and his buddies seem like they aren't taking this course. Otherwise, Severa is certain that she'd have torn out their throats by the second class, since they have a tendency to be obnoxious and stupid. And incompetent. So terribly incompetent.

Severa's attention catches onto the class ace walking through the door. She flips her long blue hair behind her and takes a seat in the second row, close by for some reason. Several of the other girls go up to greet her immediately, eager like puppies who haven't learned to be independent. Severa scowls at the scene, turning away to take her books out of her bag. 

When she turns back, the girls are gone and Lucina is staring at her. Severa has no idea why, which makes her stomach clench while something hot grips at her throat. She snarls without thinking as she always does. “What are you looking at?”

Lucina starts. Her face goes slightly pink. “Oh, sorry.” She runs a hand through messy hair, frowning. “I was just thinking about the soccer team.”

“While watching me?”

Lucina's face flushes. “I was just wondering...I heard that you're a good runner.”

That much is true. Severa can outrun anyone in the school, save for Yarne. And even then, she can still catch up to him in longer races. “What does that have to do with the soccer team?”

“We could use more players, since one of our forwards has moved to Ferox. I thought it would be a good match, since it would also help round out your extracurricular activity requirements for university,” Lucina says. 

And be coached by her mom after school in addition to seeing her at home? No thanks. 

“Yeah, I'm going to have to decline.” Severa waves off Lucina's disappointed look. “Look, why would you even want me on the team? No one likes me, and I pick fights with everybody.”

Lucina points out, “You don't pick ones with me.”

Severa feels heat rush to her face. She hopes that no one notices. “Who picks fights with you, Miss Perfect?” she says quickly to cover up her lapse.

Lucina sighs and mutters something that sounds like “You'd be surprised.” She clears her throat. “Would you at least give it a chance?”

“Absolutely not. Besides, you'd have to be good at soccer to be on the soccer team.”

Lucina's eyes light up. “I could help train you. After practice to help catch up, I mean.”

Some of the other students turn to look at them with the announced offer. Severa can practically feel their glares drilling into her head. “I'm pretty sure most people don't want me on any team.”

“But I'm not most people.” Lucina sighs. “Just think about it, please.” 

Severa nods, because she's afraid that if she talks, she'll reveal how her insides have tangled themselves into a mess from Lucina's words. 

Lucina stares at her for a few moments longer before grabbing her books from her desk and moving to sit besides Severa. While the redhaired girl is having something short of a heart attack, Lucina finishes organizing her things and turns to her. “I've been thinking about you a lot since you drove me home a couple of weeks ago.” 

That catches the attention of everyone in general vicinity. Heads snap towards them, and Severa feels sweat start to bead down her back. And not from the heat.

“Can you not say things like that?” Severa hisses. “It sounds wrong!” She raises her voice so the others can hear. “And me drive you home? You must have been dreaming.

A baffled expression crosses Lucina's face. “I don't understand. You'd rather not have people know that you're actually ki—”

Severa slams a hand over Lucina's mouth. Which unfortunately causes people's eyebrows to raise around them. “Not here.” She is not good at this not-attracting-attention-thing.

Lucina nods, gingerly removing Severa's palm from her face. “Can we talk about it later?”

“Whatever.”

Lucina smiles. “I'll take that as a yes then.” 

“Stop talking to me,” Severa whispers. When Lucina looks hurt, she adds. “It'll damage your reputation.” 

Lucina goes quiet. “Do you really think that others think of you so little?”

“I don't have to think. They tell me it!” Severa snaps as Mrs. Clearwater walks into the room, precisely on the hour. One look from her, and the entire class shuts up immediately. She starts the class with a review of the last year where it becomes very clear that very few students aside from Lucina, Nah, and the teacher's own son actually recall the past year's material. 

The amount of homework she assigns to make up for the forgetfulness makes Severa wonders if it's too late to drop the class. Her thoughts are interrupted by the appearance of someone unexpected at the entrance of the doorway.

Principle Flynn stands at the doorway, and Mrs. Clearwater arches an eyebrow in surprise. “Is there something you need, Robin? Like your daughter?”

Lucina starts to stand when the principle shakes her head. “No, I don't need to talk to her today.” She smiles warmly at Lucina before turning her gaze to Severa. “Although if Miss Faulkner could accompany me to my office right now, that would be greatly appreciated.

Severa grips the edges of her desk. Lucina stares at her, as does everyone else in the class. 

Shit. What did she do now?

The principal signals her to follow as she pulls back from the doorframe. Severa crams her books into her bags and strides towards the exit, hearing the growing murmurs at her back as she leaves. 

They make their way towards the principal's office without a word spoken. When Principle Flynn opens the door and gestures towards a seat in front of her desk, Severa doesn't move. She stares at Lucina's mother who returns the gaze firmly before sitting behind her mahogany behemoth.

“Please sit, Miss Faulkner.”

Severa's throat burns with words she struggles not to say. She has some manners after all. She just chooses to use them sparingly.

"You're not in trouble, so please relax," the principal sighs. "Although I suppose that is my fault for calling you out so suddenly."

"Then, why am I here?"

"To the point, I see. The short answer is that you're not. Yet." She leans back in her chair. "I'll extend you the same courtesy and keep this concise. I've looked over your career planning report that you turned in last year, and I thought that I would check the requirements for the university you wanted to apply for. The good news is that your grades are passable, but they've changed their admission standards this year to find students who are more well-rounded." Her eyes meets Severa's. "Which includes clubs and extracurricular activities of which you haven't had many."

More like none. "So, what are you suggesting? You seem like you have something in mind for me already."

The principle's eyes light up. "I do. I've taken the liberty to calculate the club that would maximize the most out of your skills while taking the least amount of time, and I would highly recommend the soccer team to round your skills out." 

"The soccer team," Severa repeats flatly. Lucina and her mother came together this morning to team up on her, didn't they?

"Yes, getting onto the team demonstrates athletic ability, teamwork skills, perseverance, discipline, and if the team makes it to the nationals, there is a chance that the members of the team may be offer a scholarship to their university of their choice, depending on how far they make it.” Robin gives her a calculating look. “And there are some people on the team who would greatly benefit from a scholarship.”

Severa's knuckles tighten. “What does that have to do with me?”

Robin gazes at her. “You have a lot of potential in you, Severa. But you're afraid to use it.”

Severa shoots up onto her feet. Propriety be damned. “I'm leaving if that's all you're talking about.”

Principle Flynn becomes stern. “Do you plan to live here forever, Miss Faulkner? Your behaviour suggests otherwise. A scholarship would be your best bet to leave.” 

Severa pauses halfway out the door. Mostly because it was true. 

“I suggest you talk it over with someone you trust before you come to a conclusion.”

Severa's halfway through her signature shrug before she stops and turns to face the principal properly. “Whatever,” she says as flippantly as possible, though she waits nervously to be dismissed. 

Robin evaluates her for a long moment and smiles. "Just think about it, Severa. It's all I ask of you." She waves Severa goodbye, and the redhead feels oddly rattled. She skips the remainder of her biology class and makes her way to her car in the parking lot behind the school. Her hand's bringing out her phone before she's even out of the school, and she fires off a quick request to Noire to fill her in if more homework was assigned. The bell rings and, quickly afterwards, Severa's phone lights up with a response from her friend, a panicked question about where she went during class along with the additional pages meant for reading. The redhead groans. She's texting up a storm when she senses someone approaching. 

Lucina stands before her, tucking a lock of hair behind her hair. "Hi, do you have a minute to talk right now?"

Severa scowls. "Don't you have something else to do right now?"

The Shepherd High star shakes her head. "Clubs are still setting up right now, so they don't need me right now. Actually, I was hoping that we'd get a chance to talk somewhere more private."

"If it's about soccer again, no thanks. I got the drill from your mom too." Severa opens her car door and narrows her eyes at Lucina moving to the passenger side door. "Hey, did I say you could come along, Princess?"

"Please don't call me that." Despite her reluctance of the title, Lucina waits with such certainty that Severa would open the door that redhead has to snort at the absurdity of it all. And at the fact that she actually reaches over to let her in after checking that no one was around, of course.

"Thank you." Lucina has a second to buckle herself in before she's slammed into her seat as Severa reverses backwards so sharply, her tires squeal as she tears out of the parking lot. 

Severa winces at the sound. That can't be good for her wheels. "So, spill. What did you want to talk to me about?"

Lucina peers at the scenery passing by them. Her eyes widen in recognition. "You're driving me home?"

"Duh." Severa rolls her eyes. "And before you accuse me of being a stalker, I'd like to remind you that I drove you home a couple of weeks ago." 

"I wasn't going to accuse you of being one." Lucina glances away. She coughs. "I wanted to talk about the possibility of us watching a movie together sometime." 

"...why?"

"Because you're clearly someone other than what people make you out to be. I doubt that a girl who is actually deserving of your reputation would stop to help a stranger."

"You're not a stranger," Severa mumbles. She adds, a little louder. "You're welcome. No need to hang out as thanks." She pulls up in front of Lucina's house, a three story monster painted a dark red and built with stone older than their fathers. "See you." 

Lucina hesitates. "I just want to get to know you better. That's all."

That, if possible, only made Severa more suspicious. "I'm not joining your dumb soccer team. So, you can forget about getting to know me." 

Lucina's face flicker with hurt. "That's not why I want to..." She sighs before pulling out her notepad out of her bag and tearing off a corner of a sheet. She scribbles on it with a pen from her pocket and passes it to the stunned driver. "We can talk about things besides soccer, you know." She glances at the redhead one last time before shaking her head and getting out of the car. "Thanks for the ride, Severa." She sweeps into her house without a glance back.

Severa stares at the number written carefully across the torn paper in her hand. After a few moments, she crumples it up and tosses the wad into her backseat before turning around and driving back to her own house.

She's caught speeding by Lucina's father on her way home. 

Severa curses as he approaches her car, a ticket pad in one hand while his sheriff's badge gleams in the sunlight. Since when did the sheriff handle traffic duty?

"Hi there, I think I know you." He leans down to look at her, tipping his hat. "You go to the same school as my daughter, don't you?"

"Everyone does." There was one freaking high school. "Can I help you, Sheriff?"

He smiles at her. "You can just call me Chrom like everyone else." 

...no thanks.

He continues, "Anyway, you were over the speed limit on that stretch of road back there, and I'm supposed to give you a ticket. I'm not a fan of unnecessary discipline, so we can settle with a warning if you swear to stay within the speed limits. Well, at least when any officers are watching you." His eyes twinkle. 

Severa mutters a vague sort of promise, and the sheriff takes that easily. It helps when he's being distracted by whatever he's watching for as his eyes dart around the intersection. "Is something wrong?"

Chrom snap his eyes back to her. He smiles, but it seems a little strained. "Not at all. Enjoy the rest of your day." He walks back slowly to his car, and as Severa watches him, she catches something sticking out of his pocket. It looks like a flyer with three pairs of eyes stacked on top of each other, marked with black lines connecting them as if they were crying. 

And for some reason, that makes her uneasy.


	3. Butterflies and Hurricanes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa finds out what Noire's been up to.

Inigo transfers into Severa's biology class, and it's easily the second worst day of her life. Mostly because he insists on sitting next to Lucina who seats herself next to her, so Severa was also subjected to his inane flirting. 

“Get a room, already!” She snarls, not bothering to keep her voice down and earning herself a firm reprimand from Mrs. Clearwater. “Or sit somewhere else, so I can't hear you two.”

Lucina colours. “I'm not involved with Inigo,” she states firmly. “He's just friendly.”

Friendly is not the word that Severa would use. 

Inigo, unfortunately, decides to join their conversation. “Ladies, so grim today? Are you not aware that smiles from a pair of beauties such as yourselves would be enough to light up the entire room?”

Huh, smiles can apparently power classrooms. Should ask Mrs. Clearwater about the physics of that. 

“Inigo, we're working on our assignments. Now is not the time to be joking,” Lucina explains, patiently. “And I was having a conversation with Severa.”

“The serial scowler?” He sighs and turns his attention to the girl about two corny lines away from jabbing him in the throat. “I could die happy if I could see you laugh at least once in my lifetime.”

He could die right now, and it would make Severa happy for her lifetime. “You idiot. You think any girl is going to fall for your lines when they hear you use the same one over and over again?”

“You wound me. This is a brand new line, designed to make lovely ladies such as yourselves swoon in bliss and show the world your pretty smiles.” 

Severa raises a hand while facing the teacher, and Mrs Clearwater arches her brows in surprise. “May I be reassigned to a different seat?”

“There are no more available spots, although you may feel free to switch places with a peer if they consent to it.” Mrs. Clearwater pushes up her glasses. “And Mr. Montoya, if you could please concentrate on your work, it would greatly reduce the noise levels in this classroom,” she says with exasperation.

Severa makes desperate eyes at Noire, but her friend shakes her head in apology. The shy girl glances at Inigo, who notices and winks in her direction, and she whips around, her face redder than Severa's hair. 

...really? She was going to have a talk with Noire about that later. 

Lucina leans over, interruping her concentration. Mostly because the girl has been brushing against Severa all day. “Have you finished drawing the possible ways that molecules can transfer energy yet?”

How the hell was she supposed to do that? “Yes. Thanks for asking, Lucina. You can go back to your work now.” 

“What about reviewing the laws of thermodynamics?”

“We obey them in my house. They seem fair.” 

“Severa.” Lucina seems exasperated. “I'm being serious.”

The redhead arches her eyebrows. “You don't think knowing energy cannot be created or destroyed in an isolated system is important?”

Surprise pops onto Lucina's face. “So, you were paying attention.” 

The bell rings, and Severa can finally leave this classroom and the two headaches on her right. She makes her way to Noire before anyone can stop her, and gestures for the dark-haired girl to follow her out. She plasters on a bored expression but catches Lucina packing her bag while conversing with Inigo who leans on her desk, looking star-struck. She looks mildly irritated. 

Noire glances back at the classroom as they head down the hallway. “You're not waiting for her?”

Severa scowls. “We're not friends just because she won't leave me alone in biology.” And history. And chemistry. And math. Why is Lucina in so many of Severa's classes?

Noire tucks a strand of hair behind her ear and drops her eyes. “I don't know. She seemed like she likes you a lot.” 

“Speaking of liking someone...Inigo?” Severa whirls on her when they arrive in the parking lot. “Spill.” 

“Severa!' Noire looks around, horrified, and claps her hands to her mouth. “Not here!” She scurries to the passenger side of Severa's car. “L-let's talk about it back at my place.” 

The fact that Noire offers her house as a place to chat means that whatever she's hiding is big. Noire's home is small and on the edge of the town, and the shy student doesn't bring anyone over. It was only through Severa's persistent cajoling that she managed to find out where it was, and even then, a few more weeks for Noire to reluctantly invite her over. 

They pass the main section of town, sticking to a side street to reach the outskirts. A path runs parallel to the river that requires them to drive through a thick weave of forest until they can see the tire tracks leading to Noire's house. Her mother drives a heavy clunker of a car which, if it ever hits anything, looks like it might burst into flames.

The house itself could be kindly described as creepy and reminds Severa of a dilapidated witch's hut. It's about a story tall with paint peeling off of its sides and looks like a slight wind could bowl it over. Some of the red brick tiles have fallen from the roof and are stacked against a wall while a fence composed of thick wooden stakes and heavy wire circle the house, just at the edge where the clearing meets the trees. The yawn is meticulously tended, oddly enough, though a patch of strange plants grow off to one side, sprouting in lurid shades of mauve, violet, and orange. Severa thinks she sees one with teeth.

Noire glances at her, biting her lip while the Severa kills the engine. “My mother's not back from the shop yet. We have time to talk.” She jumps out of the car and hurries to the front door to double-check that Tharja isn't home. She disappears inside the house, and Severa takes her time getting out of the car. She hasn't had the best experiences in her previous visits. 

The last time she came, a crocodile skull nearly brained her after falling from a cabinet she'd accidentally jostled. Which was still better than the time she unintentionally unleashed Tharja's collection of bats by peeking into the cellar when she heard some weird sounds from there. To her credit, Noire's mother gave a plausible reason for keeping the bats, as their guano made excellent plant fertilizer. Not that it stopped her from cursing up a storm at Severa for letting them go. 

Noire breaks into Severa's thoughts and reappears at the door, huffing slightly. “You can come in now. I've put away the newest of mother's potions, so we don't have to worry about spilling them.” She leads Severa into a house with furniture that looks like it belongs in the last century but otherwise is well-swept and clean, despite the awful turquoise green wallpaper that lines the rooms. There is a faint smell of something long dead and dusty lingering in the air, but it's covered up by the bundles of dried lavender, oregano, and rosemary hanging around the walls in the kitchen. They turn left into a kitchen with a scratched plastic table at its centre, dark curtains, and a spice rack next to the fridge that Severa isn't sure is filled with spices. 

Her friend takes a whistling kettle that's slightly dented from the stove and pours hot water into chipped teacups waiting on the table. “This is just chamomile. Don't worry. It's not one of Mother's herbs,” Noire says after glancing at Severa's expression. “Do you want anything to eat?”

Severa shakes her head and seats herself. “I'm good.” She waits until her friend sits down before taking a breath. “So, you have the hots for Inigo?”

It's lucky that Noire's not drinking her tea, because she looks like she would have spat it out all over Severa. “No! Of course not! He doesn't even know me.” She pulls a charm from her pocket and fiddles with it. “He's just in a couple of my classes.” 

“Uh-huh. That explains why you turn red around him. And why you wouldn't take my seat.”

Noire frowns. “Severa, you know that I want to get my grades up. I can't afford to be distracted by what goes on in the back of class. Especially between you and Lucina.”

Severa is, unfortunately, drinking tea when Noire says that. She spurts out some of her chamomile before grabbing a tissue from a nearby box and bringing it to her mouth. “Gawds, you have the worst timing. And there's nothing going on. Also, we were talking about you and Inigo!” 

Noire's cheeks turn red, but she continues on. “And that's why she was flirting with you all day?” 

Severa scoffs, “I don't think Lucina even knows how to flirt.” 

Noire shakes her head. Her voice trembles slightly. “S-so, you didn't notice the way she leaned over your shoulder in history this morning when she asked about the assignment? Or when her arm brushed against yours every time you talked? Think about it, Severa. Lucina gets better grades than you. Why would she ask you about how moles work in chemistry?” 

Yeah, that was kind of weird now that Severa thinks about it. “I don't know. She's just naturally very touchy?” She did tend to give hugs a lot to her friends. Not that Severa noticed.

Something flickers on Noire's face, and she hesitates before changing the subject. “Are you thinking about the principal's suggestion?” Severa had filled in her friend shortly after she got home about what happened. “I think you'd do really well.” 

Severa scoffs. “Of course not. She clearly has something planned with Lucina, and I don't want any part of that.” She lifts her teacup to her lips before pausing. She squints at what appears to be a bundle of white-blond hair hanging from a nail near the refrigerator with a cord and a label that states “Robin” across its surface. Is that Principal Flynn's hair?

Noire cuts into her thoughts. “I don't think it's anything as devious as you think. And Lucina is really nice. She's helped me a few time with my English homework whenever I bump into her at the library.” 

“Whatever. The soccer team's for losers, anyway.” Severa drains her tea before realizing that Noire has gone still and her lips are tightly compressed. “What's with that face?”

Her friend's eyes flash with annoyance. “What if I said that I wanted to join those 'losers'?” 

“And play soccer?” Noire gets sick from chasing butterflies. Severa can't imagine how she'd do training in all sorts of weather. “Why? You're clearly better than that.”

Noire bares her teeth in a snarl and jumps up. Severa gets half a second of surprise before her friend explodes. “BETTER? SEVERA, LOOK AT MY HOUSE. LOOK AT WHERE I AM. WHAT DO YOU THINK IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME WHEN I GRADUATE? DO YOU THINK MY MOM CAN AFFORD TO SEND ME TO UNIVERSITY ON HER OWN? IF I CAN GET AN ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIP, I CAN—” Her face crumbles, and she collapses into her chair. “I'm sorry. I d-didn't mean to yell at you. Please don't be mad at me, Severa.” She wipes at her eyes and hiccups. “Forget you heard that. I don't think I'm meant to go anyways.”

Severa sits in stunned silence during Noire's tirade. At her friend's deprecation, she leaps forward, clasping her hands. “Are you kidding me? You're one of the smartest girls in school! Way smarter than me. There's no way someone like you should be missing out on doing something with your brain, because you're hanging in a hick town like this.” 

“What choice do I have?” Noire gestures weakly around at the shabbiness of her dwelling. “Do you really think I have the money? It's easier to leave my dreams than to leave here,” she finishes, quietly. 

“That's not true.” Severa opens and closes her mouth several times. She can't think of anything to add, so she changes the subject. “What college do you want to go anyway?”

Noire drops her eyes. “Ishtar University near Plegia.”

Severa gapes. “The prestiguous art school? Gawds, they're so picky in their selection.”

“Which is why I've been working on my portfolio for the last year. Not that it'll do any good when I can't even pay tuition.” She starts when Severa touches her arm. 

“Noire, you're crazy talented. No sane art school is going to reject you after they've seen what you can do.” She clears her throat. “Can you show me what you've put together?”

Noire's room is covered from wall-to-wall of paintings she's done since elementary school. Some are disturbing with spirls of dark colours and violent lines; others are like a kaleidoscope of shapes and colours, oils carefully applied to give a sense of the absurd. One looks like a mountain burning below a sky melting from blue to orange. Another is of a tiny figure of a man before a massive glacier that makes him look like a pinpoint of red in a sea of white. Along Noire's windowsill lies cans filled with rocks, screws, and other odd collections of miscellaneous items with labels of random prices. Noire once tried to elaborate on why she had them when Severa asked. She commented that she was experimenting with dadaism and promptly lost Severa thirty seconds into her explanation.

There are also canvases of half-finished portraits sitting in the corner that look eerily life-like, as if they could hop out of the picture and start annoying Severa in person. The redhead arches a brow at the finished painting of someone they both know sitting on an easel. The image is even more handsome and irritating than its original source. “And you say you don't have a crush on him.” 

Noire blushes at the portrait of Inigo. She doesn't defend herself. “I have sketches and photographs too if you want to see them.” She glances at her friend shyly. “Though they're not the same as yours.” 

She hands Severa charcoal sketches of figures in various poses—skipping, jumping, laughing. One looks suspiciously like her, if certain lines were supposed to be twin tails, leaning over the open hood of a car. A bundle of photographs sit in a crinkled manila envelope. When she pulls them out, she's startled by the sharp lines in crisp black-and-white. “This isn't from a digital camera.”

“No, it's an old SLR that used to belong to my father.” Noire glances away. “Mother let me set up a dark room in one of the spares downstairs. It's tiny and I have to get a fan to ventilate it, but it works.” 

“Look at this stuff. This is insane.” Severa scans through the photographs, stopping on one showing Lucina studying alone in an empty library, gaze intense and hand in the middle of running through thick locks of hair. The light from a lamp throws her profile in sharp display, and highlights those perfect eyebrows, the crisp slope of her nose, and the definition of her jaw. She's looking at the book she's reading with such focus that her expression is almost frighteningly fierce, like a warrior about to make the first strike in a fight. 

Severa's mouth goes dry for a while. “If I had half the talent you do, I'd march up to Ishtar's registration office and demand they give me a scholarship to cover my tuition.”

Noire blushes. “But I'm not you, Severa. And I did look at the scholarships they offered. If I choose to live on the streets during my studies, they would be enough to cover the three-quarters of the first year.” 

This damn college. Sheesh.

“Which is why I need the new scholarship Ishtar offers. It'll be more than enough to cover my entire studies as long as I continue with soccer and keep my grades up.” Noire furrows her brows and chews at her bottom lip. “If the team makes it to the nationals, I definitely have a chance to be noticed. Ishtar University looking to add more students from athletic backgrounds to their students. But I heard a couple of star students left this year to transfer schools.” 

Severa looks surprised. “Lucina told me it was just one.”

Noire shakes her head. “A couple more left recently.” She bites her lip. “I don't know if the team have enough good players. Especially people fast enough to outrun the players on the other teams.”

...no. 

This is not going where Severa thinks it's going. “And if they don't?”

Noire fiddles with her fingers. She doesn't meet Severa's eyes. “I'll stay here after graduation and help Mother run the shop.” Noire sits down on her bed and picks at the worn bedding. “I suppose a shopkeeper's life would be good enough for someone like me.”

“One, stop putting yourself down. Two, do you have a back-up plan?”

“Like what? Ask someone for money?” Noire says, softly. “You know it's just Mother and me.” 

Severa winces. “Credit loans? Student ones?”

“On Mother's credit?” Noire sighs. “I've looked into student ones, but they can only offer so much. Still, it's something I guess I can do.” She glances at the clock, and her eyes widen. She bolts onto her feet. It's almost six. You need to leave before Mother comes home. She still hasn't forgiven you for the chicken incident.”

Nor Severa her. “Yeah, yeah, I'll get out of your hair.” They make their way downstairs, and Noire surprises her with a hug at the doorway. 

“Thank you. For listening. I think you might be the only person here who cares about me.”

That is sad on so many levels. Even sadder when Severa considers that she's almost in the same boat. “No problems. And hey, you are definitely going to go to Ishtar one way or another. Talent like yours can't be left to die.” 

Noire looks doubtful but grateful all the same. She waves as the redhead's pulling away from the grassy driveway, and doesn't stop until Severa no longer sees her in her rear view mirror. 

The nervous driver, however, is a bundle of emotions. She thinks about what Noire's told her, about her chances, and her dreams. And what she's willing to do to get them. Noire is so much braver than she thinks she is. Severa wishes that she'd give herself a chance. She wishes that the world would.

As she drives home, the redhead tries to think of ways to help her friend get to her goal. One possible solution stays lodged in her brain, despite every single attempt she made to wipe it out of her mind.

Severa pulls up to the front of her house and turns off the engine, resisting the urge to bang her head repeatedly against the wheel. She also realizes that Noire has somehow successfully skirted her interrogation about her Inigo crush. 

Fuck. 

FUCK.

Severa swears violently and climbs into her backseat, searching for a certain crumpled up wad of paper somewhere at the bottom of her car. She finally finds the damn thing somehow jammed under her own seat with several tears in the sheet. Carefully, she smooths out the wrinkles by flattening it against her knee before pulling out her phone. 

She holds her breath as the rings go by. 

Lucina picks up. “Hello?”

“Hey," Severa swallows, "I was just thinking about what you said about the soccer team. How many people do you need?”


	4. Unintended

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa's first experience with Lucina after school.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a chapter from The Salt in Our Scars with some minor modifications. Please enjoy the fluff.

Severa huffs as she wipes the sweat from her eyes. Her lungs hurt.

Lucina stands in the middle of the grass field, watching her carefully. She taps on the soccer ball in front of her with her foot. “Can you continue?”

“Of course,” Severa scoffs and straightens up. “I could do this all day.” She's dying.

Lucina smiles, dribbling the ball almost lazily between her feet. “Good. We'll have to train hard to get you up to speed with the others. Maybe every day for the next month or so.”

Severa thinks about Lucina's prediction. She seriously contemplates dying. “You know, I have a life outside of your soccer club.”

“Which I wouldn't want to infringe upon, but you were the one who approached me about joining the team.”

The redhead huffs. She was. Damn, that principal was so good at manipulating her. She should take lessons. "Yeah, but I said that Noire and I wanted to join." She wipes at her forehead. "Where is she anyway?"

"Ah. I thought it would be easier to give personalized lessons before the trials if we taught one-on-one. Noire is working with Kjelle." Lucina smiles at her, something soft in her expression. "And I took you."

Joy. “Whatever. Let's just get to practice.”

A small frown crosses Lucina's face, but she nods. “As you wish.”

Lucina ruins her. By the end of the practice, Severa runs so many laps back and forth across the field that she barely makes it out to her car without collapsing on wobbly legs.

She pants against the top of her convertible, not bothering to get in. And of course Lucina shows up on the side of her car, looking not exhausted whatsoever.

“Are you okay? You took off so quickly, I had to come to check on you,” Lucina says. There's a slight tinge of red to her cheeks, but it fades so rapidly that Severa wonders if she imagined it. “Was it something I said that made you leave?”

“No.” Severa ducks her head and reaches into her pocket for her keys. “I'm just starving.” Which she is, but the real reason happened in the locker room where she turned to ask Lucina something, only to catch a glimpse of the long, lean muscles of her back as Lucina pulled off of her shirt. Severa was out of there faster than Yarne faced with homework.

Lucina's eyes scan her face. They seem to be searching for something before the captain nods and gestures to Severa's car. “Then, may I suggest that we stop at Donnie's to grab something to eat? It's on the way to both of our homes.” A growl emanates from Lucina's stomach. “And...you may not be the only one who is hungry.”

Severa catches herself between a scoff and a snort. “I can drop you off there if you want.” She has no intention of being seen eating with Lucina. She doesn't want rumours to follow the taller girl like they do her.

Lucina's expression falters slightly, but there's a determined glint in her eyes. “As your captain, I insist you eat. Especially when you barely have the energy to walk off the fields after training.”

Severa flinches. So, she did see that. “You're not my mother.” Though honestly, Severa listens to Lucina more than her anyway. "And look, I already said no. Either take the ride or walk home." She hates how harsh she sounds. There's not a small amount of relief when Lucina doesn't seem to take offence at her tone and merely nods in response.

They get in Severa's car, and she backs out of the parking lot before swerving onto the main road leading to the centre of town. Lucina glances at her before fidgeting with the hem of her shirt for some reason. "What did you think of the training?"

Severa thinks of the drills. "Does everyone train like that?"

"No, but I was asked to evaluate your fitness level for the team." She coughs, and a slight flush courses across her cheeks. "You passed, by the way."

"Oh, good. At least, all that suffering counted for something." Severa checks her side mirror before pulling over to the right lane. "Are we going to train in those uniforms too?"

"What's wrong with them?"

Severa looks at her out of the corner of her eye. "They're kind of...skimpy. Like they don't cover enough skin."

Lucina glances at Severa before planting her gaze firmly on her feet. “The shorts did seem a bit small on you.” The tips of her ears have gone red, and Severa has no idea why. “Were you cold in them?”

The tight, black spandex of the soccer team's shorts barely covered the tops of Severa's thighs. She was freezing. “I managed, but longer shorts would be nice.” And warm. Sheesh.

"I'll ask our coach to order some new ones for the season." Lucina swallows, and tucks a lock of hair behind her ear. Her voice drops to a whisper. "Though I thought you looked good in our current one."

Severa glances sharply at her passenger, who suddenly finds her dashboard fascinating. Was she...?

The large windows and bright blue walls of Donnie's Diner comes into view, and the pair lapse into silence as Severa parks the car in the lot behind the restaurant. Severa kills the engine and waits for Lucina to leave while the tall soccer star stares at her knees as if trying to muster something from them.

Severa's about to ask if she is all right when her captain blurts out, "Would you like to join me for dinner? I know you already said that you wouldn't, but it would be a pleasure to have your company."

Lucina talks so strangely sometimes. "Sorry, I got homework to do." Which she doesn't plan to finish. "And I don't think it's a good idea to spend more time together than necessary. You don't want people to think—"

There's an expression on Lucina's face that catches Severa off-guard and makes the redhead's body flush with guilt. It looks almost as heartbroken as the time Lucina's family found out that Owain wasn't coming home.

“Oh, all right. But only if there's no one else there. And because you're forcing me,” Severa grumbles. She pretends her stomach isn't flipping from the happiness in Lucina's eyes.

The taller girl scrambles out of the car and makes it to Severa's side to open it for her. Her cheeks flush, and her voice has a breathless quality that has the redhead feel like something in her chest is doing flips now. "Sorry, I just...I'm just really excited to eat with you."

Severa gives her an odd look before shrugging off the comment. "Yeah, sure." She fails to see what's so exhilarating about eating at Donnie's. "Let's just grab a seat in the corner somewhere."

To Severa's relief, the diner is quiet with a few patrons lazily finishing off the crumbs of their meals.

The diner's owner and head chef greets a startled Lucina with a giant hug. He turns to give the same greeting to Severa, catches the redhead's expression, and settles for a smile instead. He doesn't seem intimidated by her. "You gals just missed the dinner rush, but I reckon there's still some grub left in the kitchen." He glances up at Lucina and whistles while she blushes. "And you've grown so big, Luci. How come you don't come around here no more?"

He glances at Severa. "Or are you too busy meeting ladies to catch up with old Donnie?"

"She's a prospective teammate for the school's soccer team," Lucina says, quickly. "And I'm sorry, Donnie. School and sports have been crazy, and I forgot to visit."

Donnie waves off her explanation. "It's fine. I know you're at that age where you've got other interests to pursuit." He winks at the other girl, and Lucina turns as red as Severa's hair. "Tell your ma and pa that I said hi, and especially tell that mother of yours to visit me more. She's nearly as bad as you," he laughs as he leads them to a secluded corner of the diner. He bids them goodnight to Severa's relief, and several minutes later, Yarne's mother comes up to take their orders with a scowl.

Severa crosses her arms and taps her fingers along her biceps as she waits for their orders. She's not sure what to say to Lucina now that they're out of school and practice. Lucina's eyes follow her fingers before darting up to Severa's face, her eyes roaming as if searching for something. It gets on Severa's nerves, and she snaps without thinking. "What?"

Lucina flushes slightly, but she meets Severa's gaze. "You're uncomfortable around me."

"I'm uncomfortable around everyone," Severa mutters, though she's not sure if Lucina heard her. "It's a free country. I can act however I want."

"I don't dispute that, but if we are going to be on the same team, I want you to be okay when you're talking to me. I'm just...I'm just a girl like the others."

Severa scoffs. "You? Miss Perfect?" The redhead would consider herself lucky if she was half as skilled as the dirt on Lucina's high-tops. "I don't think you've noticed, but you're kind of like the top student in the school. You're a big deal."

Lucina winces. She looks sad. "You're quite smart yourself, Severa. I don't know why you act like you're not."

The redhead's eyebrows shoot into her hairline. "What would you know about that?"

"I hear my mother talk about you sometimes. She sees a lot in you and says that you're the kind of girl who'll make a big impact one day."

The principal thinks that about her? Severa has trouble believing that, but there's something about Lucina's expression that has the redhead trusting her words. "Her expectations might be too high." She glances away, unable to bring about her typical sharpness. "But thanks for telling me." 

There's a quiet that settles between them that almost feels comfortable. Lucina breaks it. "I am interested in hearing about why you'd suddenly decided to join the soccer team." Lucina's gaze meets hers, and Severa finds herself sitting up straighter. "I've heard you say that you'll never join any club, so I'm wondering about the change of heart."

Severa rubs her neck. She feels heat rise to her cheeks. "It's nothing to make a big deal out of. Your mom just pointed out that if the soccer team makes the nationals, there's a good chance that the members will get scouted by some good colleges and offered a scholarship." She doesn't tell her that she's not the person wanting one. "So, might as well try for the team or something like that." 

Lucina looks stunned. Her voice goes quiet. "So, you're looking to leave here."

It's not something that hasn't crossed Severa's mind. "Do you want to stay in the middle-of-nowhere?"

"I suppose not." Lucina glances down at her fingers. That heartbroken expression comes back onto her face, and Severa's not even sure what she did. "Where were you thinking of going?"

"I'm not sure yet. I just..." Severa looks out the window. "It's nothing. Really." 

They are interrupted by a grumpy Panne slamming down two plates of the house's special in front of them, and Lucina digs into her food without looking at Severa. The redhead joins in, feeling as if she's messed up terribly but not really knowing why.

They finish the meal in silence, pay in silence, and somehow, Severa ends up driving Lucina home, though she doesn't know why or how. It just feels like she did something to hurt Lucina, and she needed to do something to make up for it. She glances at her passenger, who seems determined to stare out the window and avoid conversation. It's only when they arrive in front of Lucina's house that Severa finally gets the nerve to grab Lucina's arm before she's out the car. She has to say something to make that sad look go away.

"Hey, look. Just keep what I said between us. It's not public knowledge quite yet, if you know what I mean." At Lucina's nod and blank stare, Severa continues on. "And thanks for coaching me. I'm not the easiest—I like talking to you. You're not an idiot and—" Oh gods, Severa, how are you messing this up so fast? "—and I'd to spend more time with you. Outside of school, I mean."

"Before you leave, you mean?" Lucina's expression is unreadable, but her tone is soft. "I'd like that too." She glances at where Severa is touching her arm and sighs. She slips back into the car and leans towards Severa, whose breath catches. "But you should know that I like you more than just as a possible teammate and friend."

What?

Oh.

Severa's mind goes blank. She's absolutely useless, and all she can focus on is the thought that Noire was right.

She doesn't know if Lucina catches on that she's nonplussed, but her former passenger shakes her head and brushes her lips against Severa's cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."

The redhead can only nod in response while Lucina leans back out and closes the car door, crossing her paved driveway to enter her house. She glances back for a long while at Severa before closing her front door.

All that Severa can do is sit in her car and wonder what she's gotten herself into.


	5. Undisclosed Desires

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina realizes what she's done after her confession.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another addition from The Salt in Our Scars. This is the last one, so brand new chapters after this.

Lucina spends ten minutes hyperventilating behind the safety of her front door.

She hears the hum of Severa's car pick up and fade away, and the trembling girl brushes at her hair, hand coming away with sweat from touching her forehead.

What was she thinking confessing to Severa Faulkner like that?

She leaps up the stairs just to the right of her and calls back a response at her brother's confused holler. It sounds like he was in the living room, but Lucina shies away from speaking to him right now. She needs to talk to someone who can sort out the mess in her head.

Lucina brushes past the landing on the second floor, past her family's bedrooms, and up a short flight of stairs that led to the attic where she slept. Her father had thought she would appreciate the privacy of her own space and moved her there a year ago; her mother took over renovating the space after he punched a plate-sized hole in the side of a wall.

Lucina moves into her room and quickly locks the door before sinking into her bed. She fishes through her pockets for her phone before pulling it out and calling her best friend's number.

Cynthia picks up on the second ring and cheers into the phone. “Hey, Lucina! Great timing. Mom and I just finished closing the bakery. Want to come over and watch the latest Shadowgift movie on my laptop? Your aunt's in it.”

Lucina winces. She wasn't quite in the mood to watch Aunt Aversa screech and pout in her typical dramatic flair, although it apparently won her an award. “Not at the moment. I need to tell you about what happened with Severa after practice.”

“Of course, something happened.” Cynthia's tone is flat. “Did she insult you?”

“No, nothing like that. She—”

“Geez, why do we even need her on the team? You and I are fast enough to take on any team on our own.”

“We need an additional person, and you've seen Severa sprint before.” Both Cynthia and Lucina had caught an irate Severa bolting after a howling Yarne in the fields behind the school, because....what was even happening? Neither Yarne nor Severa ever brought up the incident. “Her speed would be useful in addition to her natural aggression.”

“That's the thing! She's, like, too aggressive. She mocks me every single chance she gets. Oh, and she's anti-social. And she's mean.”

“Cynthia.” Lucina runs a hand through her hair slowly. “She's not as bad as you think she is.”

“Of course you wouldn't think that. Not with the massive crush you have on her mom.”

“I don't—” Lucina's lucky that it's not a face-to-face conversation. “—Miss Faulkner is just really passionate at explaining the various poems of famous writers.” She changes the subject. “I just had dinner with Severa.”

“...why?”

“I wanted to get to know her better, and dinner seemed like a good idea.” She thinks about Severa's revelation and bites her lip. “Cynthia, I should tell you that—”

“Please don't tell me you have a crush on Severa.”

“...um...okay, then.”

There's a long pause. “Really, Lucina? After everything she's said to me? To you? After Owain—”

“That wasn't her fault.” Lucina's voice comes out sharp and high.

“Yeah, but after everything that's happened, it's like she's cursed. Who knows? Maybe if she wasn't the one that walked by the river—”

“She didn't do anything! It was—” Lucina's throat closes up, and she chokes. “Please don't talk about him,” she asks, quietly. “Please.”

“Oh my gods. I'm sorry, Lucina.” Cynthia's voice comes out in a whisper. “I wasn't thinking. I'm sorry that I brought him up. And I'm sorry about what I said about Severa. If you think that she's good for the team, I'll deal with it.” She grumbles, “I'll take one for the team.” A pause. "Noire's okay though. She can come too."

The soccer captain lets out a breath she didn't know she was holding. “Thank you.” She clears her throat. “I...I should go.”

“Lucina—”

“It's fine, Cynthia. I just need some space right now.” Lucina hangs up the phone, despite apologies from her friend. She drops her face into her hands and lets out a sigh. She didn't even mention confessing to Severa.

Her phone rings again, and Lucina ignores it. She heads downstairs and makes her way into the living room on the first floor. Her younger brother is lying on his belly some distance from the couch with his math textbook in front of him, his brows furrowed in concentration. He glances up when she enters and yawns in greeting.

“Hey, Lucina.” He runs a hand through his perpetually messy hair. “You're home late.”

“I was having dinner with someone. Did you get something to eat yet?”

“I made some cereal.” He shrugs. “I'm still banned from the stove after I set eggs on fire.”

He, unfortunately, inherited all of his cooking skills from their dad. “Morgan, I can—”

“It's fine, Sis. I can handle myself.” He rolls onto his back and glances up at her upside down. “So, what's up with you and your date?”

Lucina starts. “I never said it was one.”

He grins at her, slyly. “No, you did not.” He flips himself back to his front. “But you didn't deny it either.”

Little brothers can be so annoying. “It wasn't a date.”

“Then, why are you in so much denial?”

Very annoying. “Morgan—”

The sound of the front door opening catches their attention.

“Is that Mom?” Morgan frowns. “It's too early for Dad to come home.”

Their mother pops her head into the doorway. “Hey guys, good to see you home. Did you have dinner yet?” When both Lucina and Morgan affirm her answer, she continues. “Good, I'll make something for your father and I. You're welcome to join in if you get hungry later.”

“Wait, Mom!” Lucina follows their mother into the kitchen situated near the front door. “I just wanted to let you know that I finished my first training practice with Severa Faulkner.”

“Oh?” Her mother shrugs off her dark coat and sets her purse on the kitchen table. “How'd it go?”

“She's fit enough to join. And she learns really quickly.”

“I suspected as much.” Her mother pulls out broccoli along with some chicken breasts from the refrigerator. “Thank you for taking her on, honey. I know you're really busy, and I'm glad that you're taking some time out of your schedule to help your classmate.”

“It was my pleasure.” Lucina thinks of Severa running in her tiny soccer shorts. She flushes. “I mean, I enjoyed teaching her.”

Her mother glances sidelong at her. A faint smile pulls at a corner of her mouth. “I see. Well, then, do take care to not let her distract you too much from your homework.” She walks to the far end of the kitchen and fishes an onion from the pantry. “Your father called me and wanted to mention that he'll be home late again.”

“He's always home late,” Lucina mutters under her breath. The glance her mother cast over her shoulder means that she heard her. Oops.

“Lucina, is something the matter?” Her mom puts the ingredients down on the kitchen island between them.

“It's just...Dad's almost never home.” Lucina can recall the rare moments when he returned home before she was asleep.

Her mother's eyes flicker. “He's been working on a long case, and I know it's not fair that he doesn't spend any time with you or Morgan. Ever since—” She glances at Lucina and seem to change her mind on whatever she was about to say. “He does love you both. He's just very close to cracking a case that's going to protect everyone.”

“But it's been years on the same case. Maybe I can help.” Maybe she can lay Owain to rest in her mind.

“Lucina, you are 16. Even if you were allowed to help, legally, you're not supposed to. No one but your father and his deputies are allowed on the case.” Her mother's eyes flicker in annoyance. “Even I'm not allowed to assist him.”

Lucina runs her hands through her hair. She bites down on her lip. “I just wish I could do something. I wish he was here.”

Her mother gathers her daughter into a hug. She looks sad. “He will be. Just be patient, Lucina.”

They part, and Lucina helps her mother make dinner though she's not hungry. She later makes her way to her bedroom and locks the door behind her, crossing the large rainbow rug in the middle of the room to reach her aging bookshelf. She reaches into a favourite childhood book about talking rabbits and pulls out a faded yellow card made of construction paper.

She opens it, gazing on the purple, blue and red splashes of round balloons above a scrawl wishing her happy birthday in serious, painfully penned letters. Lucina still opens it from time to time, a birthday card Severa gave to her when they were still friends. She hadn't known that it was the last gift she would receive from her. She didn't know that in the following week, Severa would find Owain in the river.

And she didn't expect that it would be the last time she would speak to her as a friend. Until now.

Lucina shakes her head, shoves the card and the memories back into her book. She leaves her bookshelf to sit at her adjacent desk, flipping open the math textbook on her desk. She can worry about what to do tomorrow when she sees Severa in school.  


___

Severa isn't in class, which does not totally surprise Lucina but her absence leaves something heavy in the worried girl's throat. Cynthia spends the entire day apologizing, and Lucina has to ask the forlorn girl to stop halfway through chemistry class. The misery is short-lived as Miss Faulkner introduces a new transfer student from Rosanne with a brooding demeanour, broad shoulders, and a face that made most girls in the class gape in awe.

Cynthia elbows her in the side as the transfer student takes a seat on Lucina's left. “Oh my god, he's so hot! Miss Faulkner said his name is Gerome, right?”

Lucina shoots her an annoyed look before shifting to greet the new student. Who's already staring at her. “Welcome to Ylissetol. I'm Lucina.” She holds out her hand to him, and he blinks at it before grunting and taking it.

“Gerome.” His voice is deep and raspy. Lucina thinks she heard the girls behind her sigh. “My transfer got delayed, which is why I arrived in the afternoon.”

“No worries. You arrive just in time for an interesting English lesson.” She smiles at him, and the corners of his lips flicker upwards.

Cynthia takes this moment to lean across Lucina's desk and introduce herself. “Hi! I'm Cynthia! Lucina's friend? I think your hair looks really amazing!”

She's loud enough that Miss Faulkner has to turn around and shush her. “Cynthia, if you could please sit up straight?”

Gerome frowns and snaps back to the front, ignoring the whispers around the class that bleed into the silence. Cynthia pouts, and Lucina rolls her eyes before pushing her friend back into her seat.

The taller girl whispers to her disappointed friend, “Class is more important than staring at someone you find attractive.”

“Easy for you to say when you get to stare at your crush all class.” Cynthia raises her eyebrows towards the teacher, and Lucina feels heat flood across her face.

Lucina snaps back. “She's not my crush.”

“Uh-huh. Because you have a thing for her—”

To make things worse, Miss Faulkner turns back and tilts her head back at the embarrassed girl.

“Miss Flynn? Do you have a question about Priam's use of iambic pentameter?”

Lucina shakes her head. “No, Miss Faulkner. Please carry on.”

“Good. Miss Baxter, could you please stop disturbing Lucina and take notes? There'll be a quiz at the end of the week about the different meters used in the first five stanzas of Priam's _The Radiant Hero_.”

A heavy groan from the class answers her, and a chorus of protests rise up to which Miss Faulkner answers with a gentle smile and a clear, commanding explanation. Lucina glances to her left again only to see Gerome whip his head away again, a tinge of red on his cheeks. She doesn't have time to think about that particular detail when Cynthia jostles her elbow and gestures to her notes.

Funny how Lucina was doing that to her friend just a few moments earlier.

They leave English class with Cynthia pulling her down the nearest deserted hallway to talk about the new transfer student. Lucina glances back at the classroom and sees Gerome gazing after them, shifting his feet uncertainly before turning and heading down the opposite direction. She can't help but feel that Cynthia missed a chance there.

Cynthia finally finds an empty stairwell and opens her mouth partway when Lucina cuts in. “I'm worried about Severa.”

The shorter girl rolls her eyes but manages a look of slight concern. “Relax, Lucina. She's always skipping. We'll probably see her sometime next week.”

Lucina bites her lip. “Yes, but I'm worried about this particular day, because yesterday evening... I told her that I liked her.”

Cynthia's eyes almost pop out of her head. “WHAT? Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?”

“Shhh! Keep your voice down.”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Cynthia's bouncing with excitement. She looks genuinely exhilarated for her friend. “What did she say?”

“She didn't say anything. Just sat in her car and watched me leave.”

“Tch, typical Severa. Always has to act cool.” Cynthia frowns. “Wait, you think she's avoiding you because of that?”

“She may be.” Lucina doesn't meet her gaze. There's fear twisting in her chest and nausea growing in her stomach. “Maybe she doesn't feel the same.”

“Of course, she does! Have you seen how she looks at you?”

“...have you?”

“Well, no. But you're Lucina! She'd like you as a friend at the very least.”

Lucina winces at the words. She knows Cynthia means well. “I'm hoping that she'll turn up to practice later, and then I can talk to her.”

“And then you'll win her over by asking her on the best date of her life!”

Lucina smiles. “Here's hoping.” She glances at a clock down the hallway from them. “We need to head to class. I'll tell you how it goes later?”

Cynthia pouts. “You'd better. I”m not ready to give up my best friend spot to Severa just yet.”

“You'll always be my best friend.” Lucina hugs her. “And of course. I'll keep you in the loop.”

They part ways, and Lucina heads to her biology class that she shares with Severa though she doubts that she would show up. She's proven right when she arrives, and goes back to trying not to poke at the bundle of worry in her stomach.

The redhead doesn't show up until her scheduled training time with Lucina, and it's with clear relief that the soccer captain receives her scowling classmate.

“What are we doing today?” Severa says in lieu of a greeting.

“Good afternoon to you too,” Lucina replies. “I wasn't sure if you were going to show up.”

“Of course, I'm going to show up. I want to make the soccer team.” Severa grumbles, pointedly looking away from Lucina. She's wearing longer black shorts that's not part of the team's uniform. They're still just as tight though. “So, let's get to it. What are we doing?”

“Dribbling.” Lucina gestures to the field. “I've set up several rows of cones for you to weave around.”

Severa arches an eyebrow. “Seriously? This is so dumb.”

Lucina frowns. “Dribbling is a basic skillset. If you can master this, we can move on to more techniques.”

“Fine.” Severa steps up to the first cone in the leftmost row. She doesn't meet Lucina's eyes. “Let's get this over with.”

They finish the practice with Lucina being reasonably satisfied with Severa's dribbling skills and giving her approval to work on new things the next day.

“You're much better than you give yourself credit for,” Lucina says to Severa's grumbles that she knocked over too many cones. “If I didn't know any better, I'd say you'd played before.”

Severa jerks and turns around at that. She begins to leave the field. “Whatever. See you, Lucina.”

“Severa!” Lucina steps forward to grab her arm without thinking. “There's something I would still like to talk about.”

She receives an annoyed glare while Severa yanks her limb back. “We're already done practice.”

“It's not about that.”

Severa stops. She takes a long time to turn around. “Then, what is it about?”

“After you drove me home. I told you that—” Lucina feels her words slip out of her mouth. From the way her heart is beating, she might be the youngest person in the town's history to have a heart attack. “I like you. A lot more than a friend would.”

“Oh, that.” Severa rolls her eyes. “Great prank, Lucina, but it's kind of tasteless. I mean, you don't need to make fun of me like that.”

Make fun of her? “Why would you think that?”

Severa just looks at her. “Because you're you, and I'm me. The thought of you liking me is a joke.”

Lucina flinches. There's a tearing pain in her chest. “You think it's laughable that I might like you?” She blinks and is surprised to feel something wet in her eyes. “That my feelings are real?”

“You're a good actress.” Severa tries to scoff, but there's a look of alarm on her face. “Hey, are you crying? That's practically cheating.” There's something like guilt darting across her expression before anger overtakes it, and she snarls, “Look, I don't need your pity.”

Pity? Is that what she thought it was?

Lucina shakes her head. “It's not pity. I just want to be friends.”

“Clearly, you want to be more if what you said yesterday is anything to go by.” Severa eyes her. It's not without some measure of appreciation. “But that's a terrible idea.”

Lucina feels something in her chest drop to her feet. “Why?”

Severa makes an annoyed sound. “Are you being daft? Do you know what everyone says about me?”

“What does that have to do with me liking you?”

The redhead makes a noise of disgust. “Because people gossip in this stupid town, and I don't want them to gossip about you too!”

Lucina stares at her. “You care.”

“Oh my gawd! Did you not understand me? About people whispering behind your back too?”

Lucina keeps her gaze on Severa. Her tone is soft. “I understand you perfectly.” She touches Severa's hand gently. The redhead flinches but doesn't draw away. “Severa, I don't care what anyone says about me as long as I get to know you. And it's not going to ruin my reputation just to be seen with you.”

“You clearly don't know what it's like here,” Severa mutters. She doesn't draw away.

Lucina takes that as a chance to clasp her hand. “Maybe. But I do know that I would like to know you.”

Severa closes her eyes. Her lashes flutter. Lucina feels a strong urge to kiss them. “No."

"...excuse me?"

Severa opens her eyes. "No, Lucina. Or was that too hard for you to understand? That people hate me in this damn town, and they love you. And that people say that I'm easy, I don't have morals, I'm bad luck, I'm going nowhere in life, I'm a terrible—”

Lucina loses her temper. Mostly because she's afraid of Severa going on. “I don't care! I just want to know you from you. Not whatever everyone says about you!”

Severa snarls. “So, what are you going to do when you do find out what I'm really like? That I'm just like everyone—”

“I'm going to find out the truth about you! And then, I'll decide!” She leans in, and she swears she sees Severa blush. "I'm not going anywhere until you give me a chance."

“Fine!”

“Fine!”

“We'll go somewhere nice after practice tomorrow!” Severa whips around and stalks off, which prompts Lucina to do the same.

They both storm away from the field, and it's not until she's a ways down the main road from the school that Lucina realizes that she's gotten the first date of her life by yelling at the girl she had a crush on.

She's completely doing this dating thing wrong.


	6. Can't Take My Eyes Off You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina and Severa go on an unconventional first date.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Disclaimer: I know nothing about cars. Any mistakes on my part about how one works will be handwaved away with the explanation of magic. Engine suddenly explodes. Magic. Windshield wipers fluid made of magnetized iron liquid. Magic. Car turns into a gundam. Bad science.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy the fluff.

Lucina spends an hour and a half getting Cynthia to help pick out her outfit for her date. They end up with Cynthia looking at her friend's wardrobe and shrugging helplessly with her hands up. 

She flops onto Lucina's bed. “I guess dress like you normally do, and hope for the best?”

Lucina holds her face in her hands. “Are my clothes that bad?”

“No! Just...not date material. I think. I don't know.” Cynthia rolls onto her stomach and huffs into Lucina's bedsheets. “The sweater with the silver cats is cute.” 

There's a knock on the door, and Morgan's voice calls out. “Hey, Mom's wondering if you and Cynthia want dinner.”

Cynthia perks at the sound of his voice. “Oh! Morgan! Perfect timing! We need help!”

Lucina mouths a “No!” but Cynthia's already bounding to the door and tearing it open. Morgan stands there in a blue hoodie, looking confused. She grabs him by the wrist and drags him over to the wardrobe. 

Cynthia gestures to the clothing in front of them. “Which outfit do you think makes your sister look hot?”

Morgan goes green while Lucina settles for a mortified mauve. Cynthia realizes what she said and quickly changes gear. “Oh! No, no, no, no, no! Not like that! I mean, for a date! Your sister has one tomorrow.”

After the greenness dissipates, a look of triumph emerges on Morgan's face, and he crows, “I knew it! Who?”

Lucina looks away, the flush still on her face. “I'm not telling you.”

Cynthia cuts in. “Severa Faulkner. Sorry, Lucina, but it's an emergency,” she says after her friend gives her a betrayed look. 

Morgan looks surprised before whistling in awe. “Oh, wow. Severa's hot. Kind of a...prickly person though. But really hot!” 

Cynthia glances at him with disgust on her face. “Umm...do you and your sister purposefully forget the part where she's mean to everyone?”

“Well, she really isn't to me. Just really touchy, especially about her cooking.” Morgan peers at his sister's wardrobe for a minute. “Umm...where are you guys going? That might help narrow down your options.”

Lucina drops her face into her hands. “I don't know.”

He suggests, “Maybe call her and find out?”

Morgan waits and looks at her expectantly before Cynthia coughs and elbows him. “Uh...I'll be eating dinner while you do.”

“Yeah, I'll join him. Tell me what she says later!” Her friend herds herself and her brother out of the room, closing the door behind her.

Lucina stares at her phone for a long minute before she picks it up with slightly shaking hands and miscalls two people. When she does dial correctly, her heartbeat feels like it's trying to race out her throat.

Severa answers, sounding irritated. “I just talked to you two hours ago.”

Lucina lets out a breath. “I know, but I wanted to apologize. For the way I treated you earlier. I shouldn't have yelled.”

Severa is silent for a while before her voice comes out in a soft grumble. “No, that's okay. I can be stupidly stubborn sometimes.” A pause. “Was that all?”

“No. I'm kind of having trouble finding clothes for...for our date tomorrow.” Lucina sits down. Her legs are failing her. “What would you recommend?”

“Depends on where we're going. What did you have in mind?” Silence. “You did have a plan, right?”

Lucina chews her lip. “I do,” she says, slowly. “I noticed that you're always so conscious about the clothes you wear, and you look really good in them. I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping tomorrow and maybe give me some tips.”

“You're asking me to go shopping for a date?”

Oh no. She already messed up. “If you don't want to, we could always watch a movie or go for a walk somewhere.”

A long pause. “No, it's fine. And we can use this as a good opportunity for us to get you some new clothes.”

“What's wrong with my clothes?”

There's a snort on the other end of the line. “Your outfits look like a guy with no fashion sense picked them out sometimes.”

Lucina supposes she may have to ask her father to stop buying her clothes. 

“There's a new mall near Regna Ferox that I've been dying to check out for a while. We can go there after practice.”

“That sounds great.” Lucina tugs her fingers through her bangs. She's surprised to see them lightly tinged with sweat. “I'll see you tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Bye, Lucina.”

“Bye.”

For something that lasted three minutes, it feels like it took 13 years off of Lucina's life.

She puts her phone away, takes several deep breaths, and makes her way downstairs. Cynthia and Morgan give her curious glances over the dinner table that are badly concealed if her mother's raised brow is any indication. She signals to Cynthia that she'll tell her later while pointedly ignoring her brother's impatient pokes to her ribs. 

Her mother looks at all of them and sighs, putting down her utensils. “All right. What are you guys all hiding?”

“Nothing!” Lucina and Cynthia chorus simultaneously. 

Morgan opens his mouth to answer but freezes under his sister's glare. He gives a weak shrug. “You know, school stuff. Homework.”

Robin raises an eyebrow. “You do realize that I manage a school of 300 teenagers. I'm well aware of what most think of homework.” She picks up her fork and resumes eating. “Now, if it were something else, that would make more sense.”

“What could it be, Mrs. Flynn?” Cynthia pipes up, sounding overly cheerful. “We're all such wholesome students with nothing planned whatsoever!”

Lucina groans, internally. “Really, Mom, it's nothing. I'm just meeting a friend tomorrow, and I don't know what to wear.”

“But why is your choice of clothing so important in that case?”

Morgan blurts, “Because Lucina's got a date!” 

Lucina slams her palms on the table and stands up. “Morgan!” That blabbermouth! She looks at her mother and clears her throat. “It's not a date. I'm just hanging out with Severa tomorrow.”

Robin raises the other eyebrow. “I see. I didn't realize that Severa has become so social lately. I should tell Cordelia about this. She'd be quite happy.” She takes a bite of her chicken and waves her hand. “Have fun on your not-date, Lucina. Don't worry. I won't tell your father about this one.”

Lucina contemplates whether it's possible to die of embarrassment. “It's really just hanging out to do some shopping.” When her mother merely smiles at her, she excuses herself from the table with Cynthia and Morgan following shortly behind. They make it up to the second landing before Lucina whirls around on her brother, and Cynthia quickly steps between them.

Cynthia pushes Lucina backwards, “Hey, I know that was a jerk move on Morgan's part, but you don't really want to strangle your brother, do you?”

Lucina has to think about her answer.

"Oh, man. I'm so sorry." Morgan runs his hand through his hair. “But I couldn't keep it in. You have a date with one of the hottest girls in school, and I don't know how you even did that. Please teach me your secrets.”

Lucina glares at him, but Cynthia cuts in before she can respond. “Apparently, yelling at people you like across a soccer field works wonders.” She gestures to Lucina. “See exhibit A.” 

Morgan genuinely looks like he's taking mental notes, and Lucina has to step in. “Okay, none of this is helping. Morgan, in general, yelling at girls doesn't get you dates. You can do what I did, but I can't guarantee you that it will work and it's better to ask respectfully. Also, please don't tell anyone else about this.” 

Cynthia strikes a pose with her hands on her hips. “You don't have to worry about that! You've got some awesome friends who can keep your secret.” She pauses. “Well, you don't have to worry about me anyway.” 

“Hey!” Morgan pauses. “Actually, I deserved that.” 

“Just please don't let this get out. I don't want Severa to have second thoughts.” 

“Well, if she does, I'm available as an option for her,” Morgan volunteers. “Er...if it's okay with you, Sis,” he adds hastily at Lucina's glare.

Cynthia clasps an arm around her friend's shoulders. “Let's get back to your room and craft our strategy for making Severa fall absolutely head over heels for you.” 

Morgan points out, “Not to be the party pooper, but I don't think anyone here is the expert on how to make any girl fall for us.” 

Oh Naga, he's right.

Lucina is so doomed.

Cynthia grins. “Hey, no problem. I've got a copy of Dusklight that we can watch for ideas.” She pitches her voice low and raspy. “'I wanted to know how it felt to hunt. To taste human blood. All the men I killed were monsters. And so was I.'” She pokes her friend. “Isn't it such a great line?”

Lucina imagines that it wouldn't exactly sweep Severa off of her feet. “Umm...thanks, Cynthia, but I think I'll just talk to her as I've been doing.” 

“Fine. I find your approach boring, but I support you as your friend.” Cynthia turns to Morgan, jabbing him hard in the chest. “And you, if one word of this slips past your lips starting tomorrow, I'm going to get on your case so hard that you're going to wish that all I'm going to do is knee you.” 

Morgan goes slightly pale. “Yeah, okay. That sounds good. Lips are sealed.”

The two girls bid him goodnight and go upstairs to watch Dusklight, quickly realizing that using any of the romantic lines would be a bad idea. 

“Just don't get cut on her edges?” Cynthia suggests while Lucina sighs and considers praying.

The next day at school is largely uneventful, save for Severa actually showing up to history class. 

The irritated redhead rolls her eyes at Lucina's stare. “You act like it's shocking when I attend class.” 

Well...it is. 

Severa pulls out a notebook with a blue cover. “Did you finish the reading on the Jugdral Crusades?”

“The one about the heroes who fought against the Lopto Empire and their child hunts?”

“Yeah, using their magical weapons given to them through a blood bond with a god.” Severa snorts, “I swear if I didn't know any better, I'd think that we were studying mythology.” 

Lucina actually likes the story. “It's sort of romantic, isn't it? To believe that there are holy weapons blessed with the strength of something bigger than us? That we have heroes whose footsteps we can follow?” 

“Yeah, but we live in the real world. That sort of stuff doesn't happen here.” Severa lugs out her history textbook from her bag. 

Lucina carefully checks her reply. She asks, “How did your essay go then?”

“It's done,” Severa grumbles. “That's all I'll say about it.” 

There are students who are staring at Lucina and Severa talking with each other casually, and, honestly, the former doesn't blame them. Especially when Lucina can't seem to help herself with the way she touches Severa's hand to get her attention or when she leans in close to ask a question. Severa gives her a pointed look and gestures with a head jerk towards the whispering crowd in the back. Lucina couldn't care less.

After class ends, they make their way to the field to practice passing, which Severa still gripes about being too easy but goes through the drills anyway. They finish off their session a little early and make their way back to the lockers to change and wash.

Lucina's out from the shower first, because she realized her crush would be on the other side of the orange stall, naked and a few feet away. She waits outside the girls' locker room with her hands clenched, and her heartbeat pounding harder than when she was just sprinting across on the field.

Inigo emerges from the gym down the hall and spots her. He smiles and makes his way over. “And to whom do I owe the pleasure of the chance to meet you here?”

“Oh, hello Inigo. I was just helping Severa through some soccer drills.” 

“Ah, so Severa is here too. How lucky. She's as adorable now as the first day I laid eyes on her. Though admittedly it's not the first word that comes to mind when describing her.” He clears his throat. “Oh, where was I? Yes, I was just telling myself that your hair is deep as the night sky and just as lovely. And your beauty is only matched by your skill and knowledge in our science class.”

Lucina stifles a laugh. She's not sure if he's hitting on her or asking for help with homework. “Our assignment is analyzing the pros and cons of human intervention to the environment of an ecosystem. It's due in two days.” 

“Er...thank you?” Inigo looks a little flustered. “This isn't going quite as planned.” 

Lucina smiles. “What are you doing here near the gym? I didn't know that you were into school sports.”

“Not sports, per say, but I have a competition coming up that I need to practice for.”

Lucina doesn't get to find out for what, because Severa comes out of the locker room with her hair damp and her bag over her shoulder. She scowls when she spots Inigo. “The flirting idiot. What do you want?”

Inigo gapes at her. “You look like a different woman without the pigtails. Doesn't she, Lucina?”

Severa looks remarkably like her mother with her hair down. Lucina hopes that Inigo has enough sense not to mention it. 

“Beat it, Montoya. I didn't come to school to see your face today.”

“It's a shame that you didn't, because seeing yours definitely made my day.” He sighs, theatrically. "I was just about to ask lovely Lucina if she wouldn't mind coming for some tea with me. If she wasn't seeing anyone already."

Lucina hesitates. "As a matter of fact—"

"It's none of your goddamn business if she was," Severa snarls. "Get lost, Inigo. No one wants you around."

"Ah, Severa. Your bluntness is so refreshing sometimes." His eyes light up as if he's just thought of something. “Did anyone tell you that you're so fair and beautiful that I ask mercy for any who becomes a slave to your heart?”

“You should be asking mercy for yourself when I shove—”

Lucina drags her away after bidding a hasty goodbye to Inigo. “You weren't very nice to him,” she comments when they reach the parking lot. 

“He's the most irritating guy in school. Can't take a no if I club him over the head with one,” Severa grouses. “And he hits on everything that moves.” 

“He's genuinely nice if you give him a chance,” Lucina says while Severa snorts. “Just try, at least.” 

“You're asking a lot.”

They make it to Severa's car, and the irritated driver tosses her bags into the backseat before getting in and putting on a pair of dark sunglasses.

Severa runs a hand through her wet hair. “Ugh, I forgot to bring a hairdryer. I look like a mess.” 

Lucina looks over the damp strands sticking to Severa's cheeks and forehead. “You still look beautiful. I wouldn't mind seeing your hair down more often.” 

“It's a hassle like this,” the redhead argues, but she's not hiding the pleased smile on her face very well. “And it gets in the way.” She doesn't move to tie it up again though.

Severa keeps the convertible hood down as they move onto the main tar road out of town, the wind blowing her hair back in a rippling stream of red like a banner. It fascinates Lucina. She blushes when Severa catches her staring at one point, tipping the sunglasses downwards to smirk at her. “See something you like?”

“All the time.” 

Severa clearly wasn't expecting that answer if the flush flooding across her cheeks is any indication. “Geez, I get it. Lay off on the corniness.” When nothing is said between them for a few minutes, she gruffly ventures, “How is your family doing?”

“Morgan is studying the same level of math as me, and my parents are okay.” She doesn't mention her extended family. “How is yours?”

“Dad is busy with the church, and trying to get enough donations like usual.” Severa rolls her eyes. “Mother is the same as always. Gods, she's so strict sometimes. It's like she grew up in the army or something. She's constantly on my case to attend class more often, like she's Miss Perfect herself.” 

Lucina smiles, “I believe you said that was already my title.”

“Yeah, well, you're more perfect than she is anyway,” Severa says, blithely, as if she hadn't just made Lucina's heart-rate double in just nine words. “So, what kind of music do you listen to?”

Uh... “Jazz, sometimes, though I like folk music too. Morgan's been showing me some EDM he likes, and Cynthia's into pop from Chon'sin.” 

Severa scoffs, “Of course, she is.”

“What about you?” Umm... “What do you think of the songs on the radio?” Lucina sighs at herself when she hears her question. Maybe she needs to borrow a book in the future on how to flirt.

“Whatever's good, I guess.” Severa shifts, her skirt riding up on her thighs. She's wearing dark tights underneath, but Lucina is still trying hard to not look at anything below the neckline. She's not sure she's succeeding. “I don't think indie rock is terrible, but heavy metal is too...ugh, I can't even describe it.” 

“Uh-huh.” 

“The songs on the radio are okay,” Severa continues, “but my taste in music is your face.” 

“Huh?” Lucina glances up, startled. “What do you mean?”

Severa smirks. “Just testing to see if you were paying attention. You were staring.”

Lucina feels her face flush. “Your skirt is nice.”

“Uh-huh.” 

They manage to get to Regna Ferox without any more blood flooding Lucina's face, much to her relief. The town is located further up in the mountains, and Lucina feels the first nip of winter's chill, despite summer having not officially ended. They drive past a large stone wall that almost feels like a barricade, passing by several fenced areas that expand over two blocks while men and women in dark uniforms congregate near unmarked concrete buildings. All in all, not the most favourable impression for young tourists.

“I forgot how cold it is up here.” Severa gripes once they find the mall, which is a massive glass structure that looks more like a castle than a shopping centre. She ties her hair back into her twin tails and gets the convertible hood back up. “We can get some new coats too.” She parks close to the entrance and grabs their jackets, tossing Lucina hers. She pulls out a black leather jacket that was folded neatly and tucked into the corner of the backseat, and pulls it on. There are creases deep into the material of the elbows and shoulders that suggest it's been worn for more than a decade, but it looks remarkably well cared for. “Hey, you're staring again.” 

“Oh. Your collar's up.” Lucina moves to fix it, but Severa stops her. 

“Sheesh, it's okay. You're not my mom.” 

That would make this date rather awkward in that case. “So, where in the mall do you want to go?”

Lucina discovers that the answer is apparently “everywhere.” They walk from one end of the mall to the other with Severa peeking in boutiques and rejecting whole racks of clothing after a few seconds of flipping through their items. Lucina has to change her description of the mall from castle to cathedral when she stares in awe at the vaulting white walls and glass dome above them.

They pass by at least fourteen shops, and, in normal circumstances, Lucina would have least tried to protest that they would go in to take a look. However, in normal circumstances, Severa would not be holding onto Lucina's hand in a bid to drag her around faster. The taller girl's somehow too distracted to argue. 

They finally stop at a store with bright white walls and a bored cashier with heavy eyeliner behind the counter. The clothing style looks unfamiliar, and as Lucina gingerly picks up a bafflingly long sweater dress, Severa pulls out a bundle of items from the racks and dumps them into her date's arms.

“Try these.” 

“All at once?”

Severa makes an impatient noise. “Fine. I'll hand you what you should wear together.” She turns Lucina around and begins to steer her towards the dressing rooms. “Just get changed.”

She passes her two outfits before nudging her into the empty room at the back of the store. One of the outfits is a dark dress with a scoop neck and sleeves that end halfway on her forearms, which Lucina doesn't mind. It's the fact that the bottom of the dress doesn't even make it halfway down her thighs that is more of an issue.

“Severa, I'm not really sure about the length.”

“Well, open the door and let me see.” 

Lucina hesitates for a moment before opening the door and letting her crush in. Severa glances her over with an appraising look. “Not bad, but you're clearly not comfortable. Try the other one.”

The other one takes Lucina a better part of ten minutes to get into. Mostly because of the leather pants.

When Lucina steps out, Severa looks her over. Twice. Her eyes have trouble leaving Lucina's legs. “Umm...wow. Okay, that looks really good on you.” She coughs and looks away. “How does it feel?”

“Stiff.” Lucina shifts in her dark jacket, the inside lining made of a white faux fur that contrasts the black shirt underneath, which Severa insisted that she tucked into her pants. “I don't think I'm a fan of leather pants.”

“That's a shame.” Severa turns around and grabs a handful of dark material. She shoves it into Lucina's arms without looking at her. “Try these jeans instead.”

The jeans are only slightly less tight than the leather pants, but Lucina slips into them much quicker. She steps out in them, and Severa frowns. “It's missing something.” Her hand pulls her sunglasses out of her bag and slips them onto a startled Lucina's face. “And your hair should look a little messy for that bad girl look.” She steps close and begins tousling the dark blue locks. Lucina knows that she should say something about Severa running her fingers through her hair without asking first, but she's rather enjoying the sensation. 

Severa steps back, and she evaluates her work. She's gawking slightly. 

Lucina grins. “Has something caught your eye?” 

The redhead flushes and snaps, “Excuse you. I'll have you know that you only have that outfit, because I helped put it together.” 

“So, you like it then?”

“Shut up.” 

Lucina takes that as an affirmative and hands Severa back her sunglasses. She changes and carefully puts the outfit into the 'yes' pile. Anything that leaves the normally sharp-tongued Severa speechless is a plus in her book. 

She ends up going through enough clothing that her reject pile fills an entire rack by itself. She temporarily stops Severa's rampage with an appreciation for an outfit that consists of a long cardigan with frayed tassels, a black-and-white striped shirt with a low cut, and ripped jeans. Severa tosses on several dangling golden necklaces and pronounces the ensemble passable, which Lucina happily accepts. 

Five more outfits later, Severa sighs and crosses her arms, leaning on the door frame to the open dressing room. “You even look amazing in men's dress shirts. It's so unfair.”

...she was wearing a men's dress shirt? Lucina looks down and realizes that the last three buttons of her top are done incorrectly. “I would like to blame this on being overwhelmed.”

Severa makes an impatient noise and moves in close. The redhead's fingers deftly fixes the buttons, straightens out a crooked collar, and smoothes away Lucina's messy strands from her jaw. Lucina bites down on her lip whenever Severa's fingertips brush her cheeks and jawline. She's distracted by the tangling sensation building in her belly.

“You look so good in everything, it's ridiculous. You're the right height, have a great frame for clothing, and your complexion is amazing,” Severa sighs. “And it helps that you're drop-dead gorgeous too.”

Lucina blinks. The flutter in her stomach has become a storm. “Huh?” she replies, intelligently.

The redhead gives her a look. “Umm...hello? Do you ever, like, look in a mirror? You could practically be a model.” Her hands trail down Lucina's sides and lands lightly on her hips, causing the flustered girl's breath to catch. “I would kill for measurements like these.” 

“Uh...” Lucina has trouble thinking, especially when they're in a room barely big enough to fit the two of them, and Severa is close enough to kiss. “So, you like this one then?”

Severa blinks as if startled and moves away, dropping her hands. Lucina misses the contact. “Yeah, it's a step up from what you were wearing when we came in. I picked it after all.”

“Then, I'll take it,” Lucina says, a little breathlessly. 

“You didn't even check the price.”

“If it's you, you probably already thought of it.”

Severa flushes. “Well, yeah. Whatever. Let's just take them.” 

“Wait, what about you? Aren't you going to buy anything?”

“I already did with the amount of time you took changing between clothes.” She hefts three shopping bags onto her shoulder. She lifts an eyebrow at the pile in one corner of Lucina's room. “Need a hand?”

They haul the catch of clothing to the cashier, and they exit the store with six shopping bags in tow. The pair make their way back down to the mall entrance into the parking lot and back to Severa's car where they place the bags in her backseat before the redhead suddenly throws her hands up and snarls. “Stop smiling!”

“Huh?”

“You've had that stupid grin on your face ever since we left the dressing rooms. It's getting creepy.”

Oh. Lucina hadn't realized that she had it the entire time. “I can't help it when I heard you call me gorgeous twenty minutes ago.” 

“Compliments go to your head, huh?” Severa grouses.

“Only if they're from you,” Lucina says, softly to which her date has no response. 

They make their drive back down the mountainous path in easy chatter until Severa's car decides to die a few kilometres from Ylissetol.

“Oh my gods.” Severa cranks her engine, and turns on her wipers for some reason. When nothing happens, she swears and storms out of the car to open up its hood. “Stupid thing died in flight.” 

Lucina watches her. She gets out of the convertible to see if she can help. “What's wrong?”

Severa straightens up. “Well, the engine and the wipers aren't working, which is not a good sign. I'm going to hope that my fuel gauge was just stuck, which means we might just be out of gas. I need to test the air intake boot, open the throttle plate, and spray some starting fluid into the intake before trying the engine again.” 

None of that made any sense to Lucina. “Do you need me to get something for you?”

“Yeah, just go into my trunk, grab the starting fluid and a ratchet extender. Thanks.” Severa's already leaning back down. When Lucina continues to stand there, she looks back up and sighs. “Get the blue bottle and the grey toolbox.”

Better. Lucina understands colours. “I'll be right back.”

She pops the trunk, grabbing the container and the box before returning to Severa and passing it to her. She watches her quickly inserts a slender metal tool into a tiny metal cylinder that she called a socket, which she pops into a hole in a cover that reminds Lucina of a black, plastic liver. There's some disassembling next, and Severa spraying some of the fluid from the bottle into what looks like a giant hose. Lucina admits to herself that she's completely lost and spends the next couple of minutes watching Severa as she works. 

There's a slight furrow between the redhead's brows as she deftly manipulates the various parts of her car, sweat rolling down her skin in the heat of summer's last days. Her movements are clearly practiced, and Severa is so focused, she doesn't appear to notice the grime on her hands from the car parts. Lucina frowns at the sight, because the girl she knew when they were friends hated mud and dirt, and would frequently complain to her whenever some adventure of theirs ended up getting her clothes torn. This Severa doesn't seem to care. Lucina starts to wonder how much she knows about her at all now.

“Where did you learn how to fix a car like this?”

Severa grunts. “My neighbour is obsessed with cars. He's always dragging me over to show off his engine or something, and I just learned it was easier to try and pay attention than escape.” She replaces the cover and her tool back into the grey box. “Guess he rubbed off on me more than I thought.” She looks at Lucina and shifts uncomfortably. “It's pretty stupid, isn't it? It's gross and ugly, and most girls don't do this—” 

Lucina cuts in. “I think it's really cool.” And strangely very attractive. “I always imagine that you wouldn't like handling all of that oil and grease.” 

“I hate them, but sometimes, you just have to deal with it,” Severa grumbles. She closes her hood and makes her way back to the driver side door but stops when she notices the grime on her fingers. “Ugh. Can you start the engine for me? Just turn the key in the ignition.”

Lucing gets in and follows her instructions. There's a popping sound from the car that really doesn't sound good. “Er...did I break something?”

Severa rolls her eyes. “No, that sound just means that it's definitely out of fuel. I've got a spare bottle for emergencies where I keep my tools.” 

“I'll get it.” Lucina hops out of the convertible and grabs a slim grey bottle from the trunk. She pours the contents into the gas tank as directed. 

Severa eyes the empty bottle before replacing the cap on her gas tank and closing the metal flap. “That should be enough to get us to town.” She scowls and looks away from Lucina. “Sorry. For this ridiculous mess.”

“Don't be. I like spending time with you. Even if we're just stranded on the side of the road.” Lucina gazes at Severa with fondness. “It's how we started talking again after all.” 

Severa glances sharply at her. She doesn't respond to Lucina's last comment. “Yeah, well, thanks for helping.” She flinches when she looks at her hands. “This is so gross.”

“Hang on. I still have a towel from practice earlier.” Lucina digs around in her bag and fishes out a still slightly damp cloth. Instead of handing it over, she begins to clean Severa's hands. 

Severa flushes. “I can do that myself.”

“Yes, but you fixed the car. I can at least repay you for not getting us stuck here by helping with this.” 

“Yeah, but you're getting your towel dirty.” Severa scowls. “Give it to me. I'll wash it for you. I owe you one.”

“What? No. You don't owe me anything.” Lucina wipes off the last of the grime and bunches up the towel to throw it into her bag. “Is it that difficult to believe that I might want to do something for you, because I want to?”

Severa turns red. “Fine! Wash your own damn towel. Sheesh.” She grumbles and gets back into the car. “A girl can't offer to help without getting her head bitten off around here.”

Lucina contemplates pointing out the irony that Severa of all people said that. She says instead, “Is your car going to be okay?”

“Yeah, I just need to get everything checked when we get back.” Severa pats the passenger seat. “C'mon, we don't have all day.” 

The sun is setting by the time Severa drops Lucina off at her house. Some of the other students loiter on the streets on their way there and wave to Lucina before confusion takes over their face at the sight of the girl beside her.

"Great. You'll have gossip about you the moment you step out of your car. Welcome to my life," Severa grumbles. 

She helps Lucina carry her shopping bags to the door, and both of them stand awkwardly on the white doorstep, not sure what to do.

Lucina says after a long stretch of silence, “I enjoyed shopping with you.” She probably can't afford to do it again for another two months though.

“That's cause you've got a couple of brand new outfits out of it,” Severa scoffs, but her tone lacks its usual bite. “So...umm....yeah, it wasn't terrible hanging out with you.”

High praise coming from Severa.

She continues on, flipping one of her twin tails over her shoulder. “So, we should do this again tomorrow. I'm free.” She tilts her chin up defiantly, but there's a tremble in her jaw that gives her away. 

Lucina smiles. “I'd love that.” Without thinking, she leans down towards Severa...

...and the redhead pushes her back. She's surprisingly gentle. “I'm not easy, you know.”

“Oh! I didn't mean to imply that you were.” Lucina's ears could incinerate themselves with how hot they feel. “I was just—”

“Hoping to end the first date with a bang?” Severa asks. She flushes when she realizes what she's said. “Not like that! I mean, gawds, all we did was shop and—you're not getting that either.”

“I wasn't thinking of it.” Lucina gathers Severa's hands in hers. Her knees feel like they are about to give out on her. “So, was this the best date of your life?”

Severa snorts. “There's not much competition for the title.”

“I see. I hope that you'll give me the chance to change that then.” 

“Gods, you say the corniest things sometimes.” Severa scoffs and looks away. Her tone is soft. “But I don't mind.” 

Lucina watches Severa and reaches out to tuck a stray lock of red hair behind one ear. “Okay. Talk to you tomorrow?”

“Yeah, goodnight.” Severa drops her hands and begins to walk away. She comes back after a few moments and deposits a kiss on Lucina's cheek. “Thought I'd at least give you that. For last time.” She makes her way to the car like she couldn't care less about what she just did. Her tires squealing as she peels out of Lucina's driveway suggest otherwise. 

Lucina spends the next twenty minutes standing on her doorstep. She thinks she might be in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For music, I'd imagine that Severa would be into something closer to RnB or like Lukas Graham's "7 Years Old" but never admit it in public. She'd probably appreciate Halsey at least. Lucina would like something like Belle and Sebastian's "Piazza, New York Catcher."


	7. Black Holes and Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina starts wondering about Owain and about what the connection Severa has to his disappearance. She finds out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why did I write a 9,000 word chapter?

Lucina wears the set of clothing that left Severa speechless to school the next day, and she's baffled by the surge of attention she's getting from everyone. Her mother looked startled that morning when Lucina appeared in the kitchen, and she complimented her daughter on how well put-together she looked. Morgan didn't notice a difference, and Cynthia's eyes went wide when they saw her walk into the school.

“Oh my god. You look so cool now.”

“Thank you.” Lucina smoothes out her blouse before she thinks about her friend's comment. “Wait, now?”

Cynthia dodges the question. “Are those the clothes that Severa picked out for you?”

“Yeah. They're from a Chon'sin shop in the new mall I was telling you about yesterday.” She picks at the fabric of her jacket, ignoring the flutter in her stomach. “Severa said they would look good.”

“Well, she's right.” Cynthia whistles. “One date, and she's already dressing you. You're kind of whipped, friend.”

“I asked her for the assistance,” Lucina protests.

“Uh-huh. Did some of this help involve getting close to readjust your clothes?”

Lucina's face feels like it's on fire, and Cynthia bursts into laughter. “You've got it bad! So bad.” She leans in close, a mischievous smile on her face. “Did you two kiss? You didn't tell me last night.”

Lucina had called Cynthia yesterday to relay her date once she hauled her new clothes to her room. She shared most of everything that happened but had to cut their conversation short, because Morgan popped his head into her room and badgered her for details. Even worse, their mother also asked questions about her “non-date” during dinner, and Lucina ended up throwing herself into her schoolwork for the rest of the night if only to give everyone an excuse not to bother her.

“Hey, Earth to Lucina? Did you space out daydreaming about your hot date?”

“I was not!” The startled girl doesn't mean to snap, and she blushes at her lack of composure. “And no, we didn't kiss.” 

“That's terrible! She left my best friend hanging!” Cynthia thumps a fist into her open palm. “We're going to have to change our strategy if she's playing hard to get.”

“We are not doing anything of the sort.” Lucina tears open her locker and shoves her books into her bag. “And I don't mind, really.” She glances sidelong at her best friend. “She wants to go out again today.”

“She asked you? Wow, you got her—hook, line, and sinker!” Cynthia cheers. 

Lucina shushes her, glancing around the hallway. Laurent is reading a physics book a few lockers down from them. He raises an eyebrow in their direction from the commotion. She grabs Cynthia and begins to walk down the hall. “Let's just head to class.” 

They enter their chemistry classroom early enough that there are only a few students seated. Nah waves to them from the front row as they make their way to their seats, and a look of surprise crosses her face. “Wow, Lucina. That looks really sharp on you. Where'd you get it?”

“In Regna Ferox. Severa helped me pick it out.” 

Nah sounds skeptical. “Severa Faulkner helped you?”

“She's got a good eye for fashion.” 

“And possible girlfriends,” Cynthia says under her breath. 

Lucina feels her face flare up and shushes her friend. A few seconds later, the topic of their conversation walks into the classroom with Noire. She lifts her eyebrows at their combined staring. “What?”

Nah frowns. “Just surprised. That's two days in a row you've showed up to class. Are you all right, Severa?”

“Shove it, Hakuryu.” Severa slips past the smaller girl sitting in the front row, pausing only to glance over Lucina. She ends up staring long enough that Cynthia snickers into her hand and Nah gives her a questioning look before Severa regains her composure, slipping on a smirk that has Lucina melting embarrassingly fast. “Told you that looked great on you.”

“Thank you.” Lucina watches her and Noire settle into the second row while the latter gives her a shy smile. She realizes that she should check on her progress and heads over to the dark-haired girl, sitting down in the empty seat in front of her. “Hi Noire, how's your training going?”

“Oh! Um...it's going.” She sniffles and brings out a tissue from her pocket. “I just got a little sick from the practice with Kjelle a couple of days ago.”

The soccer team's goalie told Lucina that she made Noire run around the gym. Once. 

“I see. Do you think that you will get better soon?”

“I hope so! I don't want to hold anyone back because I'm sick.” Noire glances at her friend beside her. “Especially Severa.”

Lucina softens. She's starting to see why they hang out together so often. “Well, maybe it would help if you join Severa and I in practice?”

Severa slams her textbook down and glares at her. Lucina's taken back and wonders what she did wrong. “Is something the matter?”

“Nope. Nothing at all.” The redhead bites out the words. “It's not like my opinion matters.” 

What? “Severa—”

Noire glances between the two of them nervously. “N-no thanks! It's a kind offer, but Kjelle's doing a good job so far.” 

Lucina frowns and shifts in her seat. Severa's no longer making eye contact with her, and the soccer captain can't help but feel frustrated. “I see. Well, I'll pass your comments to her, and if you need help with anything, please feel free to ask me.” 

Noire lets out a small smile. “Thanks, Lucina. I appreciate that.” She tucks her hair behind her ear. “I hope Severa isn't being too difficult for you.” 

At that, her friend shoots her a wounded look. “Me? I'm never difficult.”

From up a row, Cynthia snorts and Nah rolls her eyes. 

Lucina responds before Severa can pick a fight with either of them. “Not at all. She's showing a lot of promise in her sessions. I have confidence in her ability to pass the trials coming up in two weeks.”

Noire drops her eyes. “Do you think I could pass?”

Severa breaks in before Lucina can answer. “Noire, if you really want to, you will. You're so smart that it'd be stupid not to have you on the team.” She stares at Lucina. “Right?”

“There may be an opening for a coach's assistant if we ask your mother about it,” Lucina says to Severa, ignoring her flinch. “But we'll see. Noire, regardless of what happens, I'll help you. I think, at this point, you're my friend too.” 

A light comes on in Noire's eyes, and she looks at Lucina with such vulnerability that it touches her. “Thank you. You don't know what that means to me,” she says, quietly.

Lucina smiles in response and glances at Severa, who's staring at her with an expression like she's seeing her for the first time. “Is something the matter?”

Severa takes a few seconds to process the question and shakes her head in response. Before Lucina can press her on her reaction, Mrs. Clearwater walks in and gestures them for them to sit. Lucina joins Cynthia, despite wanting to sit near Severa. She would feel bad about leaving her friend there under the scrutinizing gaze of the science teacher, especially because it was Lucina who convinced her to sit in the front initially.

Cynthia passes her a note when the teacher's back is turned to the class as the focused woman rapidly writes a few formulas on the whiteboard. Lucina glances at the note, which is a messily scrawled “Smooooooth.” She rolls her eyes while her best friend grins.

She heads to math next with Cynthia bidding her goodbye before skipping to drama class. As she turns to walk down the hallway, she feels someone gently bump into her, and Lucina's surprised when it's Severa who walks beside her, shoulder brushing against her arm. 

"Hi.” Lucina's tongue feels thick all of a sudden. “Did you want to talk about something?”

“Like how we only have one science teacher in the whole school?” Severa scoffs before she winces and glances away. “Yeah, actually, I did. That was really nice. What you said to Noire.”

“Was it?” Lucina was just being honest.

“Yeah, not everyone treats her like you did, which pisses me off, because being mean to Noire is like being mean to a puppy!” Severa seems to realize what she says and stiffens in response. “But you probably don't want to hear me whine about that stuff. Sorry.”

Lucina frowns. “Don't be. I like hearing how much you care about your friends.” 

Severa stumbles and nearly walks into an open door. “Gods, the architectural layout of this school is awful!” She scratches at the corner of her jaw, a flush across her face before she starts scowling. “And whatever, Lucina. You don't have to be so mushy sometimes.” 

She...wasn't?

“Anyway,” Severa glances at her, chin tilted slightly upwards, “Please don't invite Noire again to train with us.”

Lucina is baffled. “But why? I thought you would appreciate training with her.” 

“It's not about that.” Severa looks away. “I just...” A myriad of emotions comes across her face from uncertainty to fear before settling on anger—anger, because that's the emotion she seems most comfortable dealing with. She blows past Lucina and heads towards their math classroom down the hall. “Forget it. Talk to you later.” 

Lucina has no idea what she did to conjure such ire. 

Severa doesn't talk to her during class, and Lucina can only speculate what the silent girl is mad about. When the bell rings to signal the end of class and the beginning of lunch, Severa's out the door before Lucina can stand up in her seat. Resigned, she sighs and begins to walk towards the cafeteria where her friends would be waiting when Laurent pops his head out from a nearby class and gestures for her to come in.

Curious, Lucina follows him into an empty classroom, and he closes the door behind them. “I'm sorry to have called you here like this, but I thought I would be the bearer of bad news in a more private area. Before I deliver this message, I would like to inquire about the nature of your relationship with Severa Faulkner.”

Huh? “She requested to join the soccer team, and I agreed to help her train for the trials. We're friends.” Sort of. 

“I see. That's admirable.” Laurent adjusts his glasses. “Unfortunately, because of your association with Severa, whom many of our members consider a delinquent, we have to discontinue your membership in the Biology Club for fear of being seen as tolerant to her actions.”

...she was in the Biology Club?

“Wait. What do you mean by delinquent? And when did I join the Biology Club?”

“Ah, we made you an honorary member last year due to your consistent outstanding performance in the sciences,” Laurent elaborates. “It seems we forgot to inform you about it, as you were recuperating in the hospital at the time from a concussion gained in a sports match.” He pushes up his glasses. “As for the delinquency, Severa has shown a history of squabbling with our members, and has caused one student to transfer schools after they had a disagreement and she broke his nose.” 

Lucina remembers that. It fuelled the school gossip machine for several days. “I”m sure she had a good reason for it.” 

“Perhaps, but as facts go, she has caused us the loss of one promising member. Consequently, we have decided that we do not wish to have any ties to her.” 

Lucina's flabbergasted. “Do you feel that way towards her, Laurent?”

“I...” His expression falters slightly. “I am impartial to Severa as a person, but as the president of the Biology Club, the responsibility falls to me to take actions that reflect the feelings of the club as a whole. I am sorry, Lucina, but this is what was requested. However, should the situation change between you two, please feel free to rejoin our club.” He goes to open the door for her.

Lucina thinks about telling him that she wasn't technically in the club in the first place. Instead, she thanks Laurent for telling her about the membership and leaves the classroom. On her way down to the cafeteria, she is told by at least six other clubs that she's no longer a member of them, despite not remembering having joined any of them. How many concussions was she recovering from last year?

She meets up with Cynthia and Kjelle in the lunchroom, feeling quite puzzled. “I've just had the oddest experience.”

Kjelle looks up from her meal. “People kicking you out of their clubs, because you've been hanging out with Severa?” She pauses and looks over Lucina. She whistles. “Well, damn. Who are you trying to get laid by?”

“Anyway! Weird experiences!” Cynthia chimes in, “We've been asked all day about what you're doing with her. Apparently, training her to join the soccer team is not a juicy enough answer, so they're saying that you're planning some kind of huge drag race with her and she's pulling you into it.” 

That's...interesting. “What else are people saying?”

Cynthia replies, “Uh...that she's the head of a secret crime gang, and you're her number two. She's cast a spell on you with Noire's help. Oh, and she's totally seducing you into doing her will.” She drops her voice, so that only Lucina can hear her. “Which isn't totally untrue.” 

Lucina swears that Cynthia's going to be the death of her. “All ridiculous rumours.” 

“Which is what I said too.” Kjelle sits up. She's keeping her gaze steady between her two teammates and the odd interaction they just had. “But they're going to keep building until you give them an answer. So, what's going on with the gossip magnet and you?”

Lucina's stomach drops to her feet, because she doesn't quite know. “She's a prospective teammate.”

Kjelle raises an eyebrow. “And that's why people have been seeing you two outside of school?”

“She's just an old friend that I started talking to again. Sometimes, it's feels like we never drifted apart.” 

Kjelle frowns. “You say that, but do you really know her anymore?”

Cynthia glances between the two before clasping an arm around Kjelle's shoulders. She steers her towards a lone figure sitting against the far side of the cafeteria. “Hey, have you met Gerome yet? He's the new guy that transferred a few days ago. Super dreamy.” 

Kjelle protests, “But I wasn't finished—”

“Hottie alert. C'mon, Kjelle.” She casts a glance over at Lucina who mouths a 'thank you.' Cynthia gives up a thumbs in return. “You gotta be my wing-woman on this.” 

Lucina feels sick. She escapes the cafeteria and her sudden awareness of the eyes on her as she leaves. Unable to think of where else to go, she makes her way to the library located on the other side of the school. It's a little busier in there due to the lunch hour, but there's hardly clumps of students milling about its corridors or its two levels. Whoever designed the school clearly loved books if the fact that the library has its own building is any indication.

The librarian waves at her, munching on a snack as always. “Good to see you, Lucina. We got some new books donated in the history section if you want to see them.” 

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Greenheart. I'll check them out.” She makes her way over to that section and nearly bumps into a girl on her cell phone. She's about to apologize when she hears Severa's name being whispered and unconsciously leans in to listen. 

“Yeah, she's all the talk of the school again. No, I haven't met her, but she doesn't look friendly. She's supposed to be bad luck, and she's got, like, two moms or something. Hmmm...she found the nephew of the sheriff in the river. I heard that his throat was cut out, and she's part of this gang going around kidnapping children—”

Lucina cuts in. “That's enough.” 

A girl hardly older than Morgan squeaks when she hears Lucina's voice and almost drops her phone. “Were you listening in?” She pales when she gets a good look at Lucina's face. “Oh.” 

“It's rude of me to eavesdrop, but the library is not a place to talk badly of someone else.” Or any place. “Who were you talking to?”

“My cousin in Valm.” She juts her chin up in defiance, but her knees are shaking. “It's a free country. I can say anything I want.” Her voice warbles.

“Gossip and slander are not things to be proud of spreading.” Lucina peers at the girl and realizes that she doesn't recognize her. “Why all the interest in Severa Faulkner though?”

The girl twists a strand of mousy brown hair around her finger. “Well, she's bad luck, isn't she? She found your cousin by the river. Rumours say that she curses everyone who talks to her.” 

Lucina reels as if she's been punched in the stomach. “I see. Thank you. For the record, none of those things are true.” She steps aside, and the girl shoots past her, racing towards the exit. When she hears the retreating footsteps, Lucina sighs and sags against a shelf, her forehead resting on a worn copy of “The History of Akaneia.”

Of course, Owain is going to come up when people are talking about Severa, and Lucina would be foolish to be believe that they wouldn't. She doesn't want to keep hearing about him from people who were never there, to continue being prodded by the relentless stream of questions about if certain details were true. Worse still, a lot of the things people were asking about were true like the gash found across Owain's throat or the bruises on his arms. The questions that haunt her are the ones she doesn't have answers to, like how—for all of the exemplary officers on the case—the investigation never discovered how he was abducted that morning. And why her father wasn't on the case.

How the hell could they not find anything? Just...

“Are you all right?” Mr. Greenheart's concerned face comes into view, his hand on her shoulder. “I called you several times, and you didn't respond.”

“I'm fine.” Lucina closes her eyes. There's a headache forming behind them. “What did you call me for?”

“The warning bell's rung, and you've got less than ten minutes to get to your next class.”

She lets out a long breath. “Thank you for letting me know.” She bids goodbye to him and leaves the library, cutting across the grass field to reach the door closest to Miss Faulkner's classroom. She makes it with a minute to spare. 

Cynthia waves her down. There's a pout on her face, and Lucina takes it that her attempt to pick up Gerome did not go as planned. Lucina heads to her seat before noticing that said boy on her left is staring at her with something like concern.

She sits down, gesturing to a sulking Cynthia that she'll respond her later before turning to ask him, “Is something the matter?”

His brows furrow, and the line of his mouth flattens out. “You look troubled. Has something happened?”

Lucina blinks in surprise before shaking her head. “Not at all. Thank you for asking. How have you found our town so far?”

“Uneventful.” Gerome frowns. “There's something you're not saying.” He shifts, looking worried before sighing. The collar of his shirt is slightly open, and Lucina can see the hollow of his throat and the indentation of his collarbone. “But I see that it's not something you want to share right now. Should you need a willing ear in the future, I would be open to lending it.” He looks away, seeming uncomfortable and having exhausted his supply of words for the day.

Lucina's touched, but before she can respond, her elbow is jostled by Cynthia on her other side who passes her a note in a huff. On a torn sheet of paper in a messy blue scrawl are the words, “You're not allowed to date both Severa and Gerome.” Lucina quickly fires off a reply that she's not and shuffles the paper onto Cynthia's desk before Miss Faulkner enters the room, her movements a little slower and more languid than normal. She sets them on their quiz about the different metres in _The Radiant Hero_ , but there's something tense about the line of her jaw, the narrowing of her eyes. If Lucina wasn't already familiar with that look in Severa, she could miss it altogether. There's something that Miss Faulkner is worried and angry about that she's trying to hide, and Lucina wonders if it's a good idea to ask Severa about what's bothering her mother. When they finish their quiz, they continue reading the rest of Priam's poem. When Miss Faulkner turns her back to the class, Cynthia slips Lucina a note, detailing all of the reasons about why Kjelle is a terrible wing-woman. 

At last, the bell rings, and Cynthia wrings a promise from Lucina to chat later before they part for their respective classes. Gerome, however, waits for her by the entrance of the room and offers to walk her to wherever she's heading next. Lucina's surprised but she accepts his offer. She says, “I hope that everyone has been welcoming to you so far.”

“Some are far too welcoming,” he grunts, walking around a cluster of girls who are gawking at him. He sticks close to her when several of them reach out to touch his shirt. “It's as if they have no concept of personal space.”

“It's not often we get a transfer student, so it's not surprising that they're interested in you.” Aside from other reasons, which Cynthia is too happy to share with her. “What made your family want to move here?”

He shifts his books from one hand to another. “My mother found a job here, so we all move. I guess it's not a bad town for some quiet time.” He goes silent until they reach Lucina's biology class.

She turns to him. “Well, I'm glad to hear that you're starting to get settled here. I suppose that someone from a more urban area might find Ylisse boring, but I like it here. It's very safe.” 

She's about to thank him for walking her here when Gerome stops her, his eyes dark. He says, “Given what I've heard about here, I would say that's not true.”

Lucina feels her breath stolen from her. A surge of heat rises through her chest, and she recognizes that she's angry. She focuses on taking a breath before responding. “What do you mean by that?”

Gerome peers at her. There's a surprising sadness in his eyes. “Do you really think that any town can stay safe forever?” Before she can respond, he leans in, close enough that his breath brushes her ear. “If you ever feel that you require a friend you can trust, please come talk to me, Lucina.” He looks like he wants to say more but stops himself and walks away, glancing back at her with an unreadable expression.

Lucina's torn between going after him to demand an elaboration, and heading into class. She tussles with the decision before she shakes her head and slips into her classroom, adding the need to question Gerome to her mental pile that has been growing this odd day. 

Severa doesn't talk to her during class, which doesn't surprise her. She can't but feel a little lonely that the person she wants to talk to has turned into a wall. On her other side is Inigo, who seems to have caught onto her mood, frowning at her expressions and trying to get her to smile to the point where he physically attempted do so. It ends up with both of them getting ejected from the class for “disruptive behaviour." They awkwardly stand outside the classroom doors with Inigo giving her an apologetic smile while Lucina glares at him. The chatter of the students on the other side of the wall does not help, and Lucina finds herself grinding her teeth together at the unfairness of it all.

Ten minutes later, Mrs. Clearwater comes out to address them both. With one hand on the side of her glasses, she glances at Lucina and Inigo. “I am surprised at this sudden and unexpected behaviour, and while Mr. Montoya has shown a history of, shall we say, being over-enthusiastic in the classroom, you do not, Miss Flynn. I hope there will not be a repeat performance in the future, otherwise an immediate separation shall be necessary.”

Lucina glances at her feet. “I'm sorry, Mrs. Clearwater. I don't know why I lost my temper.” 

Something softens around the teacher's eyes, and she nods in acknowledgement. She gestures for Inigo to return to the classroom before turning her attention back to Lucina, She continues in a softer tone. “It has reached staff attention that rumours regarding your deceased cousin have started up again in these hallways, and I understand that it can cause great distress and a loss in concentration in your studies. Therefore, I will propose to the other staff members that we take a no tolerance stance to the circulation of frivolous conjecture immediately once this class has ended.”

Lucina takes a moment to digest what she said. “You're planning to put a stop to the gossip?”

“Absolutely. Hypotheses without a basis in fact is mere speculation.” The frowning woman pushes up her glasses. “Not only that, but it appears that you are not the only student involved. Miss Faulkner has been a frequent target for misguided and fallacious inferences, and staff members have often attempted to eradicate these rumours in the past. Clearly, we have not succeeded with the way they have been resurfacing.” She closes her eyes and looks like she has a headache. “It is a failing on us as teachers if we cannot protect our students from each other.” Her eyes open again, and Lucina's startled to see something flaring in her gaze, different from her usual cold study. “I do not know the state of your relationship with Miss Faulkner, but I would urge you to continue it. It seems to be proving beneficial to her.” 

“It is to me, too,” Lucina replies quietly, feeling something warm flood her belly.

Mrs. Clearwater considers her for so long that Lucina starts to feel like a butterfly caught under glass when the science teacher nods in approval. “Do be persistent. Miss Faulkner has a history of being dogged in her opinions, but she is not one for denying truths as they are.” She opens the door for both of them to return. Just as Lucina passes the threshold, she whispers to her, “The winning of affection can be arduous, but much can be gained from it. I wish you luck, Miss Flynn.” She gives her a small smile before turning to the class to get their attention.

It takes Lucina a few moments to remember that her legs work before she walks to her seat in a daze. She's not sure what happened, but she thinks she just got dating advice from Laurent's mother.

Severa glances up when Lucina sits down before the irritated girl huffs softly, looking out the window for the rest of the class. She's frowning at something intangible in the distance and tapping her fingers along her desk. As much as it pains Lucina not to speak to her, she thinks that the silent girl just wants some space. Inigo has been oddly quiet since their brief expulsion, and Lucina almost misses his chatter. She pulls her attention to her assignment, and it's almost with relief that she breaks away from the world, even for a little bit.

After classes, she meets Severa to work on dribbling and passing to ensure that they've gotten the basics down firmly. Soccer practice is silent for the most part. 

It's Severa who breaks the atmosphere with a sigh after catching a pass. “Okay, what's wrong?”

“What do you mean?”

“Usually by this point, you're trying to get me to hang out with you or talk my head off, but you've been quiet and broody all afternoon. You didn't even notice me looking at you all biology class, and you're usually all over stuff like that.” Severa shifts, her eyes on the ground. “If this is about what I said earlier, that wasn't really about you.” 

Really? “Then, what was it about?”

Severa crosses her arms and scowls. Her cheeks match her hair. “I just...I just don't like sharing you with anyone else when it can be just us.” 

Lucina is stunned. “That's the most forthright I've heard you been all week.” 

“Hey! I'm trying here! And Noire might have helped a little with that.” Severa looks around the field and notices a copse of trees not too far off. She gestures for Lucina to follow her, and they sit down with their knees almost touching in the shade of a particularly large tree. “So, what's bothering you? Besides me.”

Lucina chews her lip. She can't help but notice the clusters of students standing outside the school, watching them. “Have you noticed that people are looking at us more?”

Severa snorts. “You noticed that now? They've been doing that since the day you started talking to me in biology class.” 

Oh. “I supposed I didn't see it for a while.”

Severa looks away. “This is what I meant when I said people will gossip about you if you hang around me.” She swallows. It looks particularly painful for her. “If you wanna stop, I get it—”

“No!” Lucina pauses, adding more softly. “I mean, I don't. I just...I keep hearing them mention Owain...and it's painful.” 

A wall comes up in Severa's eyes when Owain's name is mentioned, and that hurts even more. 'Is that the reason behind all the sudden interest in me?”

“It wasn't sudden,” Lucina mutters. “And no, I'm not trying to dig into you for answers. You already told the police everything, right?” she asks, and Severa nods stiffly. “Then, it doesn't matter.” Lucina stands up. “It's a small thing to complain about. We should finish your practice.” 

Severa looks like she wants to argue, but Lucina's already walking away. They go through the basics again with Severa not even bothering to complain. By the end of the practice when Lucina is commenting on her progress and what to improve upon before walking away, it's the redhead who stops her with a light grip on her wrist.

“Okay, this is clearly bothering you more than you let on.” Severa grimaces. “Do you want to talk about it?”

Lucina sighs. “Severa, it's fine. I just need to go home to review some material for our chemistry quiz.” 

“And I thought I was the stubborn one.” Severa drops her hand, and Lucina is already missing the touch. “One, our quiz is next week. Two, it's Friday. Three, look, let's just...go. Let's get away from here and talk. Regna Ferox again? I've got a purchase I need to return, because they messed up the sales pricing.”

“It's always shopping with you,” Lucina says quietly, but she smiles. “All right. I accept.”

They change quickly and hop into Severa's car with the redhead sharing more than few choice words with some of the students who have been staring at them. Lucina makes an half-hearted attempt to stop her before slipping into the car and waiting. Severa circles around after a few minutes and jumps in, nearly slamming the door on her side. “Idiots, all of them.” 

She backs out of the parking lot and heads onto the main road out of town. Lucina is quiet enough during the ride that Severa squirms. She grimaces and taps her fingers on the steering wheel for a few minutes before blurting out, “Okay, fine! Tell me what they've been saying about Owain.”

“They've been talking about him and you...”

Severa scoffs, “Of course, they have. I've been hearing the same rumours my entire life.” 

“It's a little different now. I'm included now.”

“Oh, boo hoo! A few whispered words about the perfect princess. What a shame.” Lucina's taken back by her tone, and Severa seems to notice. She deflates. “Sorry, I'm not good at this comforting thing. Yeah, I know how that feels. What are they saying about us?”

“That you've been seducing me to do your bidding.”

Severa pauses. She glances at her. “Well? Am I succeeding?”

Lucina laughs out of surprise. For a few seconds, a sweet smile comes onto Severa's face before it's replaced with her familiar smirk. 

“I'll take that as a yes, then.” 

“As someone else once said, I'm not so easy.” Lucina gazes at her. “I look forward to see what you try in the future to convince me otherwise.”

Severa's throat moves. She doesn't seem to have a response to that. “Uh...so, what else have they've been saying about Owain and I?”

“That you're part of a gang that kidnaps children to sacrifice them.” 

“Wow, okay. That's a little dark.” Severa runs a hand through her bangs. “Geez, they really have a low opinion of me, don't they,” she scoffs, but there's an undertone of hurt in her voice. 

“They don't know you.”

“Of course not. They look at me, and all they expect is my mother.” Severa stares straight ahead through the windshield. Her jaw is clenched. “People see my mom, and they fall in love with her. Then, they meet me and think I've clearly been adopted, because I've inherited none of her talents. One kid even called me a defective version of my mom.”

Lucina thinks about what Laurent mentioned earlier. “Was that the boy you got into a fight with last year?”

“Yeah. I thought I was going to be expelled.” She goes quiet. “Your mom was pretty cool about it. Even listened to my side of the story and everything. Still was suspended for a week though.” 

“Why did you fight him?”

“That smug idiot not only insulted me, but he insulted my mother. He said that there was something wrong with her for having me.” 

So, Severa beat up a student for dishonouring her mother. There is something old-fashioned and cute about that. And kind of scary. “That was foolish of him.” 

“Yeah, that's how he ended up with a broken nose. Haven't seen the jerk since.”

Lucina neglects to tell her that the boy subsequently transferred schools in the week that Severa was gone. “He's wrong though. You're not any version of your mom. You're just you.”

One corner of Severa's mouth curves up. “Yeah, and you like me, right?”

A lot, actually, but Lucina isn't going to boost Severa's ego any further. “There's many things to like about you.”

Her comment completely backfires. Severa has a smug grin on for the rest of the ride to Regna Ferox.

They make it to the mall and return the item without incident, though Severa did hassle the clerk into giving her a bigger discount on account of the grief she suffered over her wrongly priced item. She succeeds, and the pair leaves the store with a smirking Severa holding onto a lavender shopping bag. 

Lucina smiles at her before her mind begins to wander off, puzzling over the strangeness of the day and the painful grip she feels in her chest whenever she thinks about Owain. She must have dazed out, because she feels Severa grabbing her hand and leading her away from where they parked. 

“What are you doing?” Lucina asks, curiously, as they walk past the end of the mall and into a district made of grey stones with faded banners stretching high above them. The smells of roasting meats and spices hit Lucina's nose, and she feels herself salivating while Severa leads her further into narrow streets that have cobblestones made of red and black stones beneath their feet. The entire street looks aged as if they stepped back in time about fifty years, and Lucina's fascinated by the bright splashes of colours across the shops and houses that contrast with the stoic look of the stone architecture.

“Where are we?” Lucina asks the girl beside her as she leads them to a pavilion filled with carts showing off freshly made food. 

“Old Town. It's a part of Regna Ferox that's untouched by all of the recent building.” Severa sniffs, letting go of her hand. “You like spending time with me, right? I'd thought we could go for a walk and stuff.” She reaches up and brushes some of Lucina's hair out of her eyes. “Get you out of your head for a while.” 

Lucina's heart catches at the gesture, feeling Severa's fingers threading through her hair. “I'd like that.” She feels her stomach growl and her face reddening consequently. “But do you want to get something to eat first?”

They grab a crepe to share, quickly devouring it within five minutes before going back and buying two more. The shopping district is full of older shops with vintage style clothing that involve puffed shoulders and leopard-spotted tights. Lucina finds the clothing quite interesting but gets yanked past the stores by Severa who wears an expression of horror. It's only when they stumble onto a stone path that runs besides a river wide enough to make swimming across it impossible that they stop. The river in itself is charming with the water rushing in splashes of white bursts and a furious roar as it breaks over the rocks jutting out from its bottom. Severa takes the edge of the path that's farthest away from it, and Lucina falls in line beside her. 

Lucina peers at the redhead pulling her jacket closer around her. “How do you know so much about this area?”

“My mother used to take me here to check out the shops. My dad travelled a lot to talk to the deacons of different towns, and my mother and I figured out how to kill time together when we came with him.” A frown crosses her face. “We used to, anyway.” 

Lucina is silent. “Sounds like this place meant a lot to you. I'm happy that you decided to share it with me.” 

At that, Severa crosses her arms. “Yeah, well. You looked like you needed to take your mind off of something.”

“This helped.” Lucina could hear her heartbeat in her ears, in her throat. She gathers her faltering courage and reaches across the gap that separates her and Severa, gently gathering the surprised girl's hand in hers. She waits to see what will happen, and when Severa doesn't pull away, she lets out a sigh of relief, and turns to face her. 

Severa's ears are as red as her hair. “I'm just doing this, because you might get lost.”

“Well, I'm lucky that I have you here to find me.”

Severa rolls her eyes but doesn't let go.

They walk along the stone path curving around the edge of the town as Lucina stares out over the churning waters. She can't help but wonder where Owain's body would have been found if he had been dumped into this river instead of the one at home. Would he have been torn apart by the rapids, or would he have sunk to places that no one would ever have thought to search? Would it have been better if his body had never been found to give them all that sliver of hope that he might be alive, or was the grief that closure brought more forgiving? Was there something Lucina could have done to stop his death? Was there something she did to cause it?

Her thoughts preoccupy her, and she doesn't notice that they've stopped walking until she feels Severa's hand slip from hers. Startled, she looks up and notices the redhead scowling at her with her hands on her hips, looking about one tic away from exploding. Wisely, Lucina chooses to let her speak first. 

“You need to stop obsessing about what's in your head.” Severa jabs at her chest. “Like, I've taken you around half of the damn town, and that stupid sad look is still on your face.”

“Oh, sorry. I didn't realize it bothered you so much. I won't have it on anymore.” 

Bad answer. Severa explodes, “Are you listening to me? I don't care if you're sad! You're human! It's normal to be unhappy from time to time. What bothers me is that...” She hesitates before glancing to the side. “It hurts me to see you sad. That I can't do anything about it.”

Lucina stares at her. 

Oh. 

“You are doing something about it. You're here with me.” 

“Gods, that was corny.” Wincing, Severa runs her hands through her bangs. “I'm serious, Lucina. Today, it feels like you're so far gone in your own head that I can't reach you. And I still feel like I can't.” She drops her eyes, her voice quiet. “Maybe this was just a mistake.” 

Something inside Lucina freezes. “What was?”

Severa doesn't seem to hear her as she makes to leave until Lucina grabs her arm. “We're not a mistake.”

Severa flushes. “I didn't say that!” 

“We're not a mistake,” Lucina repeats, pulling her closer. “I... I was just thinking about the rumours that I've been hearing, like I mentioned before. About you. About Owain.” 

There's a sharp hiss from the redhead who closes her eyes. When she opens there, the look in them make Lucina's heart drop to her feet. “You're always going to be reminded of him when you're with me, aren't you?” Her voice is quiet as she pulls Lucina's hand off of her. “I've already told the police everything. I have no more answers to give you that I didn't give them.”

“I know that. I just—I wonder if...”

Severa looks away, but there's something about the way she wraps her arms around herself that reminds Lucina of crystal under pressure, fragile and breaking. “Do you think there's something I'm hiding from them? From you?”

“Of course not! I just want—”

"Him back?” Severa tries to scoff, but the hurt in her voice gives her away. “Did you ever want me? Or was I always a mean to find answers?”

“I've always wanted you,” Lucina says, quietly. That gets Severa's attention, and she finally looks her way. “Please, don't ever think that my feelings are less than sincere.” She takes a breath and runs her hand through her hair in an attempt to soothe herself. It doesn't work. “I just want to know. I just want to find out what happened to him and who took him. How'd they managed to take him that morning. Whether we could have stopped them.” She swallows, a burr in her throat. “Whether it was my fault, because I could have done something.”

Severa turns so sharply towards her that Lucina nearly jumps back. “You'd be an idiot to think it was your fault.” She reaches up to Lucina's cheeks, fingers tracing a path under her eyes, and the taller girl is surprised to feel wetness on her face. “You are crazy smart and responsible. You're always looking out for other people,” Severa's throat moves, “even when they don't deserve it, and you're always giving everything that you have for the people you consider friends.

“Whatever happened to Owain, it's not your fault. It's—” Severa cuts herself off and looks away. It takes her a few seconds to meet Lucina's gaze again. “You didn't kidnap him. You didn't kill him. You had nothing to do with it. So, stop dragging around this guilt for something you didn't do.” Her thumb grazes the curve of Lucina's cheek. “Do you understand me?”

Lucina sighs, closing her eyes and feeling the warmth of Severa's fingers on her face. “Yes.”

“Okay, good. You were seriously starting to depress me.” 

Lucina smiles and places a hand over Severa's, pressing down on it so that her palm cradles Lucina's face. “I'll stop making you sad, your Highness.” 

“Your Majesty is acceptable too,” Severa grumbles. She drops her eyes. “And I know I haven't been the most supportive person today.” 

“It's fine,” Lucina sighs, savouring the sensation of Severa's hand on her face. She opens her eyes as a thought hits her. “Er...was that our first fight?”

“Please. We had our first fight when you asked me out.” Severa rolls her eyes. “Knowing us, we'll probably yell at each other on the way home.” 

Lucina thinks they'd probably have to work on the shouting as a form of communication. “Well, let's head home and tempt fate. I've kind of had enough of the scenery.”

Severa glances at the waters besides them and winces. “Okay, maybe the river wasn't the best idea.” 

They make the way to the end of the path, which breaks out into the paved streets they used to get to the mall. Snow starts to fall in light flakes, which baffle the two since it's not remotely close to winter. Severa takes down her twin tails due to the cold while Lucina is suddenly very glad that her new black jacket has a fur lining.

They wander along the concrete buildings and steel fences until Lucina admits she's lost, and Severa spots the glass dome of the crystal mall just a few blocks away. Her fingers slip back into Lucina's hand, pulling her in the direction of the dome as Lucina gets distracted by the people they're sharing the sidewalk with. They pass by men and women in dark uniforms and caps patrolling the streets, passing by the two with cursory glances. The rifles on their backs are troubling. So is the sheer amount of soldiers who are marching up and down the streets as if preparing to quarantine the town.

Severa steps closer to her, squeezing her hand. “So, is it just me, or is all of this unbelievably creepy?”

Lucina frowns. “There weren't so many of them here yesterday. We should ask them what's going on.”

“No, we shouldn't. I've seen movies. Things never go well when you get involved.” 

“Severa, it can't hurt.” Lucina stops a boy who barely looks older than her. “Excuse me, do you know why are there so many soldiers here?”

The boy shrugs and scratches at a patch of dark stubble. “The officers just told us to shut up and show up. Can't tell you if there's another war coming on or if they think there's trouble about to go down.”

“I see. Thank you for your time.” Lucina pulls Severa a little closer as the boy breezes past. “We may need to talk to an officer to get more information.” 

“Yeah, or we can watch it on the news like normal people.” 

“Severa, whatever's going to happen may involve our home, our families. We need to know in order to be prepared.” 

The redhead grimaces. “Fine. One officer. Then, we'll go.” 

It's easier said than done when Lucina realizes that she doesn't know how to identify one, and Severa takes the lead, which surprises the taller girl. 

“How do you know what to look for?” Lucina asks as Severa points to a woman with light blue hair in a uniform with yellow markings on her arms lingering around the outside of a bar. 

“Look for the insignias on the arms and shoulders. That one's a sergeant because they've got three chevrons on their jacket.” 

“Er...chevrons?”

“Yeah, the yellow pointy hat thing. Look, you got your officer. Just go and ask them your questions, and then let's get out of here.”

“But how do you know so much about that?”

Severa sighs. “My mother used to point out the ranks of soldiers we spotted.” Which raises the question of how the elder Faulkner knows them. “Less questions of me, more questions of them.” She gives Lucina an impatient shove in the direction of the officer.

It turns out that she didn't need to, as the woman in uniform notices them and stares with a dumbfounded expression. It lasts only a few seconds before anger twists her features, and she storms towards them. 

“Oh, crap.” Severa grabs her arm, and they're turning to flee when the woman lets out a bellow behind them.

“Cordelia Faulkner!”

“What?” Severa shares a startled look with Lucina. “How does she know my mother? Also, isn't she aware that my mom is half a foot taller than me? There's no way I could pass as her.”

The reason for the officer's mistake becomes obvious when she nears. The smell of alcohol from her makes the woman reek enough that Lucina suppresses an urge to retch, and the soldier barely manages to stop her momentum without toppling over. She jabs a finger in Severa's face. “You fucking coward. You ran off and left us all to die.” 

“Excuse me? I think you've gotten me confused for someone else.” Severa looks like she could have bitten that finger off if Lucina didn't have a hand on the redhead's arm to calm her. “And my name is Severa.”

The drunken woman looks confused before rage retakes her expression. “You've got to be related to her. You can't look so much like her without some kind of relationship.” 

“That's really none of your damn b—”

“If Cordelia were here, we could have stopped the child hunts from restarting,” the woman slurs. “We could have stopped them before they started abducting kids from here, from Ylissetol and Valm.” 

“Child hunts?” Lucina feels her blood leave her face. “Who are you trying to stop?”

The soldier ignores her. “She should be here. We should be stopping them before they take them instead of being on clean-up duty after the fact. And now we're here again, because she didn't do her fucking job good enough the first time!” 

“Take it up with my mother then! I have no part in it!” Severa snarls. “I don't even know what you're talking about.” 

“Maybe if she showed her fucking face, I would. Some hero she turned out to be. Best sniper in the unit, first lieutenant, and she left us to run off with some pretty priest.” The officer pauses, digesting Severa's words. “Your mother...” She peers closely at the younger girl's face. “So, the priest was a man after all!”

“Screw you! What would you know about my parents?” Severa bares her teeth. “Clearly, nothing's going right in your life if you're drunker than a sk—”

The officer swings at Severa. She's fast enough that the redhead barely ducks the first blow and sidestep the second, leaving the soldier to stumble forward, swearing. Lucina moves to restrain the officer, but Severa pushes her back. She slips into the street to get the woman's attention.

“Hey, dumbass! Assault charges, much?”

The officer roars and charges again, stumbling as they loop a sloppy roundhouse that nearly causes them to lose their balance when Severa once again steps to the side. “Stay the fuck still!” The soldier fumbles into a wall and turns to face her young opponent. A sneer crosses her scarred face. “The daughter of a deserting whore. Guess the apple doesn't fall far from the tr—”

Severa punches her in the mouth. Lucina didn't even have time to blink.

The soldier stumbles backward and claps a hand over her jaw, shock on her face. Severa stands shorter than either her or Lucina, but the expression on her face would leave any attacker reconsidering their plan. “You say one more word about my mother, and I'll beat all of your ugly teeth out of your head.”

Lucina places herself between them. “Stop—”

The soldier spits out blood. There's fury on her face. “Your mother ran from the Grimleal, and I bet you will too. Cowar—” 

Severa darts past Lucina and hits the soldier right below her ear with a roundhouse punch, and the woman drops as if suddenly falling asleep on her feet. Severa's face has gone unusually pale.

Lucina stares at the unconscious woman before Severa grabs her by the forearm and drags her out of the area, as people were starting to come around the corner to investigate the sounds. A few blocks from the scene, she drops her touch as if it burns and stalks off towards her car. Lucina opens her mouth to ask a question before catching a glimpse of Severa's expression. She decides to quickly get into the vehicle while Severa drives off so quickly that Lucina swears she has whiplash from the sharp turns down the mountain road. 

The redhead is furious if the set of her eyes and the tension in her jaw is any sign. She also looks pale enough to be sick, and nothing has been spoken between them since they left the officer. The silence is so stifling, Lucina could choke on it. She needs to break it. 

Lucina swallows, nervously. She decides to lead with a less volatile question. “Where did you learn to fight like that?”

Severa's hands tighten on her steering wheel. They go white. The first two knuckles on her right hand are starting to swell, and it looks quite painful. “My father taught me. After we visited Valm when I was younger. He thought that I should know how to defend myself.”

Which she did frightfully well. “Do you need some ice for your hand?” 

Severa's expression tightens. “What I need is to know why my mother has hidden so many damn secrets from me.” 

“Like the child hunts.” Lucina takes a breath. “Do you think that was related to Owain?”

“I don't know.” Severa goes quiet, and something that looks like guilt spasms across her face. She pulls over to the side of the road where she turns off the engine. Her breaths come out ragged, and she runs her undamaged hand through her hair. A laugh comes from her throat. It doesn't sound happy. “Here I am accusing my mother of keeping secrets when I'm the same.”

“Severa?”

The redhead turns to her. “Listen, it's not your fault that Owain got kidnapped, because...it's mine.” Severa drops her eyes. “I was the last one to see him alive.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will get darker.


	8. Agitated

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina finds out what happens to Owain on his last day with Severa, and fears the reason why she never heard about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing is not recommended when you have a concussion. Please enjoy.

The shock of Severa's words renders her stuck for several seconds. Lucina rewinds them in her mind as if there is any more meaning in a phrase so simple. When she finally understands, it's as if the world she comprehends is crumbling apart. “Why didn't you tell me?”

Severa shrugs, a careless raise of one shoulder that's almost offensive. “One, I already said that I told the police everything. Two, if you somehow didn't find out from your father, I don't think you'd believe the story.” 

Lucina watches her carefully composed expression, the irreverence of her tone. They're belied by something in Severa's eyes that reminds her of an animal about to bolt. “Let me decide.” 

Severa turns her head and stares out the window. She's silent for such a long time, it's as if the redhead has sunken into stone. Lucina waits for her—the quiet of the car slipping into an eternity as her hands clench at the fabric of her jacket. 

“I'll tell you what happened. From the start.” Severa's words come in starts and fits, each pause like a solid beat of rest in a cluster of staccatos. “Owain invited me out to the river at your eighth birthday party. The one where your parents dressed you up as a 'princess hero', and Cynthia smashed her face into your cake.”

Lucina remembers that. She had tried to wipe off Cynthia's face after her friend tripped into Lucina's plate. Sumia had come out of the kitchen to wash up her daughter, and Severa gave her half of her own piece after seeing Lucina's empty dish. It was also the last time she saw Owain alive.

“I told him that I was going to be an adventurer far from here when I grew up, and Owain told me that he had a secret to share with me if I wasn't all talk. So, I met him at the river at sunrise when everyone was sleeping. He showed me this stupid cave on the other side that he wanted to store treasure in, and he made some big speech about being heroes and saving worlds beyond our own. I thought it was dumb and asked him to lead me back over the river, and on our way, I found...” She bites her lip. There's a horror in her eyes like she's seeing a nightmare, a voice in her ears that Lucina strains to hear. “Gods, I can't even tell you how awful it was.”

“Does it have to do with what happened with Owain?”

Severa starts laughing—a lilt that sounds as unhappy as it sounds desperate. “It has everything to do with that.”

“Then, I need to know. For my own sake. Please.”

Severa takes another long breath, her body flinching like each revelation is ripping at her insides. “It was a book. We found it under a bush with torn cloth caught in the thorns like someone was trying to run past and and just shoved it in. And being the stupid kids that we were, we opened it. It...” She falls into a painful silence, eyes wrenched shut. “It was a horrible book. It burned Owain on his palms when he tried to pick it up. And I know it sounds like I made it up, but it branded his hands with an eye. When I...found him later, his palms had been slashed until you couldn't see it.” 

Lucina leans back. She shuts her eyes and holds her hands to her face as she tries to cease the whirling of her thoughts. At Owain's funeral, his hands had been wrapped in thick bandages, though no one would ever tell her why. 

Several minutes pass before she could bring her hands down. “But what does an eye have to do with anything?”

“The eye's a mark. It made it easier for the book's owners to find him.” 

"But why?"

Severa smiles, a thin line across her mouth that doesn't reach her eyes. “Because it's a book that belongs to the Grimleal. And only Owain and I knew where we hid it.”

Something cold and airless bleeds into the space between them. Lucina's has trouble breathing as her thoughts reel against one another like a tangle of kites weighing each other down. “The Grimleal were hunting children.”

“And they marked them first, so everyone knows which ones to take. That's what I think.” Severa's eyes become unfocused, distant. She looks like she's gone somewhere Lucina can't reach her. “I don't know yet what the book means to them, but the cave was undisturbed. Owain didn't tell them anything.” Her knuckles tighten on the steering wheel. 

"Do they know about you?" A thought flits across Lucina's mind and makes her stomach sink as if it's filled with stones. "They'll come for you if they do.”

“Tell me something I don't know,” Severa scoffs. "They...they tried once before, or I think it was them. When my dad took me on a trip after Owain's funeral to get away from everything. They nearly pulled me into a van when I was walking outside of a village in Chon'sin. My dad saved me, but he didn't let me out of his sight until we came home." She sits back, her shoulders sagging as if under too much weight. "So, yeah. I've been dealing with it for a while." 

Fear grips at Lucina's throat when she considers how close she came to losing Owain and Severa. “Why didn't you tell anyone this?”

Severa turns her head to meet her gaze, and when Lucina sees the look in them, a shock runs down from her throat to her belly. “Do you really believe I didn't?”

Silence stretches between them like the distance between two drifting stars. Lucina shifts to see Severa better, the slight rustle of her jacket like a bomb inside the car. “Who did you talk to?” 

Severa frowns. “A man who worked for your father's department. Big man, big mustache, bigger belly. I ran into him after—after I found Owain in the river. He patted my head and listened to me blabber. He told me that he would write everything down in his report, and it would be best for my safety and my parents' if I don't mention any more of it to anyone. He would take care of everything else.” 

She stares ahead, gaze distant. “He's still on the force, and, yet, nothing's been solved. There's something wrong with your father's police department, Lucina.”

“There's nothing wrong with my father's policemen.” Lucina's voice comes out high and tight. She doesn't recognize herself.

The redhead tilts her head towards Lucina, exposing the long lines of her throat. “Then, why doesn't your father know?”

When Lucina doesn't answer, Severa lets out a soft snort. There's something in her gaze that reminds Lucina of someone who's fought too many battles, but there is a strange sort of relief too. “So, now you know it. My sordid tale. How many hours do I have before you kick me out of your life?”

Lucina starts, the question a sudden shock. “Why would I want to do that?” 

“Because it was my fault. I found the book.” Severa can't meet her gaze. “And it was my big mouth that made Owain want to show me that cave in the first place. And I'm the one that let him walk home alone.” The next words come out almost inaudible. "Do you hate me?"

Lucina looks at her, hearing everything repeat in her head. She doesn't know. 

When she thinks about Owain and how he'd been found, a fury rises up in her, dark and suffocating like a beast awakening, clawing at her throat, her mind—she wants nothing more than to see what happened to Owain be brought to light and the perpetrators to pay what they owe. Her face must have revealed her ire, because she sees something in Severa's eyes die out, her expression like a man's who has been told that he was condemned to death. Silently, Severa gets out of the car, walking over the gravel edge and into a field of waist-grass, as if heading to a destination Lucina can't see. 

Watching her go into the darkness without looking back makes terror grab at Lucina's heart, and she's seized with a sudden panic that she is going to lose her. Lucina darts out of the car and towards Severa, trampling the grass around her in a bid to reach her. When she does, she grabs Severa's arm, and the redhead rips it away with a snarl, whirling upon her like a wounded animal. Something glistens on Severa's cheeks in the fading twilight, and Lucina's chest tightens at the sight. 

“What do you want, Lucina? Do you just want answers to Owain's death? Are you looking for someone to blame like everyone else?” Severa's voice cracks. “Was that all you wanted from me?”

Lucina's throat closes at her tone. She can't speak, and Severa takes the silence as a judgment.

“Fine.” The redhead's voice is low, furious, and desperate. “We'll never speak of this again.”

“Severa, I'm not angry at you. I don't blame you.” 

“Bullshit.” Severa's fists are clenched tightly at her sides. She looks so disappointed. “I don't know why I'd thought you'd be different.”

Something tears in Lucina's chest. She moves towards her anyway. “Severa, will you listen to me? You didn't kill Owain. It wasn't you.” 

“But it might as well have been,” Severa spits. "It should have been me."

Lucina almost slaps her. "No. It shouldn't have been either of you." She takes a long breath. “Show me the book. I want to judge it for myself.” 

“No! I'm not taking you to see it. That's just stupid!”

“Fine! Don't take me to the cave, and let me see proof for myself!”

The redhead snarls, showing teeth. “Good! I'm glad you agree!” 

Severa is too smart for reverse psychology. Lucina should have guessed. 

"Look, I just..." Lucina holds her fingers to her forehead. "I just want..." 

“You don't believe me, do you?” Severa's tone is sharp. There's clear hurt in her eyes. 

“Of course, I do. We have recorded evidence of magical weapons and staffs in history, remember?”

“But we live in the real world, and that shouldn't happen.” There's a crack in Severa's voice. “Magic doesn't exist. Voices shouldn't come out of books, and demons caught in pages shouldn't be able to kill you.”

"But they do. And they did. I'm sorry, Severa." Lucina glances at the heaving girl in front of her, panic at the edge of her expression. Whatever's between them feels like a thin cord on the verge of snapping, but she has to know. “Where is the book?”

"Are you even listening to me? I can't tell you, otherwise it'll get you killed like it did Owain!” 

Silence. The words hang between them like a curtain, an iron wall. Severa's voice comes out quiet after a pause. “I mean it. If you find out, you'll die too. I don't want to get you involved.”

Something thick settles in Lucina's throat. “And you? Are you not afraid that this secret you insist on bearing alone will kill you too?”

The words come softly like a whisper, but each of them hit Lucina with a vivid violence. “I'm already prepared for that.” 

A long stretch of silence. Lucina feels her mouth go dry, and her fist clenching at her sides. “How are you prepared?”

Severa looks away. “I can't tell you that either, but it's part of the reason why I said that...” She glances up at Lucina, meeting her eyes. “That this might be a mistake.” 

Severa's words feel like they're spearing out pieces of Lucina's heart as she realizes her meaning. “So, you plan on taking on this burden by yourself? The Grimleal come after you and you take them on, becoming a hero, but what happens to you, Severa? Do you die like Owain and never let your family know what happened? Never let me know?”

Severa crosses her arms. She looks deeply tired. “Just go, Lucina. Walk away. You don't need to be involved in this train wreck of one. Go wait in the car, and we can pretend this never happened.”

Lucina trembles. It's not from fear. “Do you honestly believe that I'm the kind of person who walks away when someone's in trouble?” She stares at Severa until she realizes that the girl in front of her wants Lucina to blame her. Like she blames herself. “No, Severa. Help isn't what you want, is it? You don't want to be a hero. You want to be forgiven. You think that this plan you have is going to make up for what happened to Owain, don't you?”

Severa reels like Lucina struck her. “What would you know about me?”

"I know that your favourite colour is red and that your favourite fruit are peaches." Lucina takes a step forward. "And I know that you hate being compared to your mother, because you want to be recognized as your own person. I know that your father's favourite topic to preach is forgiveness. And I know that you feel like you'll never earn it to make up for what you think you should have done.” She takes another and watches as Severa's shoulders start to shake. Lucina searches her memory for a phrase she's heard the priest use before. “Grace is only given when it's undeserved. That's why it's a gift.”

Severa's breathing hard. She doesn't respond.

Lucina continues, “You say you don't want to draw me in, but you heard that officer. The Grimleal abducted children from Ylissetol eight years ago.” She notices that Severa has gone rigid, but she continues. “They killed Owain.” Her voice drops. “I'm already involved, Severa. They took family from me.”

The redhead is silent for such a long time that Lucina is about to prompt her when she speaks. “You didn't see his face.” Severa covers her face with one hand as if trying to block out something. “The police had closed his eyes before your family ever saw the body, but he looked so terrified when I found him, Lucina. He looked like he died painfully and alone.” 

A stabbing sensation goes through Lucina's chest. It passes in a minute, but the sorrow it leaves behind is almost suffocating like she's drowning in its wake. He didn't deserve that. He never did. 

“And I'm the one that led to him to it. Even the detective who talked to me said it would be better if I kept quiet about it. That maybe I made up the story, because I was the one responsible. Who'd believe a crazy girl about a cursed book?”

Lucina's eyebrows rocket towards her hairline. She spent her entire life talking to her father about his work, and she's never heard of any credible investigator who would say something like that to a child for what is clearly an adult's crime. “What was his name?”

“I don't know. Cerviches or something like that.” Severa scoffs softly and looks away into the darkness around them. “What does it matter? He was right.” 

“Severa, he was a grown man telling a young girl that...a murder was her fault. There was something wrong with him. Not you.” Lucina thinks about Severa's words. She wonders about the investigation into Owain's death. “As someone dear recently told me, you can stop dragging around this guilt for something you didn't do.” 

Severa turns to look at her, but there's a expression in her eyes that makes the hair on Lucina's arms stand up. “Just drop it. We don't live in a fairy tale. You're not my hero, and I don't need you to save me.” The redhead's knuckles have swollen to nearly twice their size. There's something broken in her hand like there's something broken in Severa. "So, stop treating me like I'm a walking pity party." 

“Then, stop acting like it. Like you're the only affected by this.” Lucina feels her composure crumbling, something hot and desperate climbing in her chest. “You don't think that after everything you've told me, I wouldn't be terrified for you? That I wouldn't dwell on the fact that I nearly lost you as well as Owain? That if you keep going at this by yourself, I am going to lose you.” Lucina's voice goes quiet. "I can't afford to do so. So, please let me help you before it's too late again." 

Severa steels herself, but the defensive line of her shoulders crumples—slowly, at first, like a crack along the surface of a dam. Her stoic expression falters next, and the corner of her mouth wrench themselves down in grief. Her cold demeanour collapses. “Lucina, I didn't think—gods, I'm so self-absorbed. I didn't think about how you felt about this at all. About me.”

Lucina takes a final step towards her until she's only a foot away. She reaches out to gently grasp Severa's unhurt hand. “I don't know what your plan is to handle the Grimleal, but I'm here beside you. Promise me you won't do something stupid like sacrificing yourself to save the world.”

Severa scoffs, “No way. I'm way too self-centred to be a martyr. It sounds more like something you'd do.” 

Despite her words, Lucina feels worry writhing in her belly. “Promise me, please.”

“Fine. I promise I will not kamikaze myself to save the world. Happy?”

“Yes.” Lucina's arms loop around Severa's neck, drawing them closer until they are resting their foreheads against one another's. “If it ever comes to that, we'll think of something else, okay?”

“Melodramatic, much?” There's hesitation before Severa relaxes into Lucina's hold and says, softly, “I won't go anywhere, Lucina. Not unless you want me to.” 

Lucina closes her eyes, hearing only the sounds of their breathing in the silence around them. They stand there, caught in a moment where nothing can harm them and nothing can hurt them—a pause in time that the taller girl commits to memory until she rebuilds the warmth of Severa nearby, the scent of her hair that reminds Lucina of wildflowers, and the solidness of her arms around Lucina's nape. When the memory's completed, her eyes flutter open as she takes in the sight of the girl before her, her own eyes closed in turn for a second longer.

Severa opens her eyes, and Lucina feels a jolt through her belly when their gazes meet. There's a heat to Severa's stare that makes the blood in Lucina's veins feel like molten gold, smudging out coherent thoughts in her head with its fingers of liquid fever. Lucina admires the colour of Severa's eyes—a shade of wine that in the right kind of light turns to a searing red, the nearly porcelain quality of her skin, and faint tinge of pink in her lips before rational thought departs from her, and all she can think about is how utterly beautiful Severa is.

They gaze at each other for a long while before Severa stiffens. Lucina's uncertain from what until the redhead scowls. “You know that was, like, the perfect moment for a kiss, right?”

...oh. 

Oh!

Lucina leans in, but Severa's already sighing and moving away. She pushes the crestfallen girl back with a hand on her shoulder. “The moment's over.” She coughs and turns her gaze to the side, reddening slightly. “But that doesn't mean there won't be another one.” 

“I see.” Lucina clears her throat, disappointed. “Why don't you take the lead the next time it comes up?” Apparently, she keeps mistiming it.

"Depends when it does." Severa shrugs. “So, can we leave this field? Cause my hand is seriously killing me.” 

Yes, that swollen and bruised hand looks like it needs medical care. "We better hurry to the hospital then." Lucina grabs Severa's unhurt hand and begins leading her to the car by the wayside. “And we need to tell my father about what the book you found.” 

Severa jerks her hand back. “Um...hello? Unreliable police reports? Shoddy investigations? Something's happening with your dad's police force, and he might be in on it?”

Lucina's throat burns. The thought of her own father... “No, he's not. He can't be. I know him, and he would never let Owain's death slip by without finding out the truth.” She turns around, seeing only the other girl's faint outline in the moonlight. “Do you trust me, Severa?” 

Severa hesitates before she steps closer to Lucina, touching her arm. “If it's you making the calls, I've got your back."

"And do you trust my judgment that my father will be able to help you with this?"

"You're backing me into a corner here." A hiss comes from the other girl. "But yeah, I do." 

Lucina can't help the smile that breaks across her face. She crushes a startled Severa into a hug. “Then, we'll tell him the moment we return.”

“All right, geez! Let go of me. You think you'd just asked me to marry you with the way you reacted,” Severa grumbles. “If this blows up in our face, I get to tell you 'I told you so'.”

The pair make it back to the car on the side of the road and realize that they're extremely lucky that no one took it while they were gone, since the doors are unlocked and the keys still are in the ignition. Severa starts the engine again, and they take off of the side of the road, gravel crunching beneath the wheels.

Lucina watches the outline of the grasses waving by as they pass. "I'm starting to suspect that we shouldn't be near any open fields when we have serious conversations." 

"Why? Yelling at each other across a field has been therapeutic for our relationship."

Lucina frowns at her before an idea occurs. She pulls out her phone and dials her father's number. "You can arrange to meet him at the hospital." 

Severa glances sharply at her. "What now? While I'm driving?"

"I'll hold it." Lucina places her father on speakerphone as Chrom's voice fills the inside of the car. She nudges Severa, and the redhead grimaces before leaning forward towards the phone. 

"I have something to tell you about Owain."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter underwent a lot of rewrites, so I'd love to hear what worked for you guys and what didn't below in the comments. Believe it or not, it was going to be more angsty. So guys, more angst? Less angst?


	9. Break: Owain and Severa

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about adding this as a separate story in itself, but I wanted to keep it altogether to make it easier for people to find all the related stories. If this breaks the story submersion too much, let me know, and I'll move it somewhere else. If you don't want to read what happened when Owain met Severa, you can skip it or quickly hit the back button and pretend nothing happened.

Severa squints at the sunlight breaking over the horizon as she peddles her bike down an empty street towards the river. She stops by the big tree that hugs a corner at the end of a street and hide her bike behind its trunk. She makes her way along the river bank until she sees a blond boy with an impatient pout waiting on a boulder nearly as big as he is. Owain's easy to find with his bright crown of hair already spiralling out of control, and when he spots her, he leaps from the rock, a wide grin stretching along his face as he darts towards her.

“What took you so long?” he says to her when she approaches. 

“Hey! I took a big risk to sneak out to meet you!” she sniffs. “You can at least be nice to me.” 

“Sorry! I just want to show you something!” He takes her by the hand, gently despite his bouncing. “Come on!”

He takes her by the oak tree that fell in the river last year, which no one has been inclined to move. The trunk is wide enough that they can walk across it comfortably, save for the ominous creak the tree makes when they step onto it. Or the fact that it shifts slightly with the current.

Owain hesitates, his expression fearful before something determined comes into his eyes. He jumps onto the trunk, which lets out a loud crack and drifts a little in the river. Owain's nearly tumbles into the water as Severa screams, watching his feet scrabble on the slippery wood. He grabs onto a jutting branch as he falls, saving himself but scraping his palm in return. 

“Ow.” He pulls himself up and jumps over the end of the tree onto the opposite bank. “Be careful, Severa.” 

Severa rolls her eyes and quickly slips across the oak trunk, aware of the pressure of her steps. She makes it to Owain without incident and sees a splinter in his palm that has the boy tearing up. Huffing, she grabs the startled boy's hand and peers at the tiny sliver caught in the flesh at the base of his thumb. She reaches over and pinches it—remembering how her mother has done it for her last week—before gently pulling out the wood. “There! Now be more careful.”

Owain examines his palm with awe. “You're amazing, Severa.” He grabs her hand and pulls her into the woods ahead of them, not noticing the blush on her face from the compliment. “C'mon!”

“Wait!” She yanks her hand back. “What do you want to show me?”

“Something great for any warrior!” He spins around. "I told you at Lucina's party!"

Yesterday was Lucina's birthday, and her parents couldn't decide between dressing her as a princess or a hero. They ended up placing a tiara on her dark hair and a plastic blade by her side, calling her a princess hero, and Lucina plays the role well, swinging her sword with a flourish that makes the other children gape in awe. 

Lucina's also so ridiculously sweet that she doesn't yell at Cynthia when the girl trips and accidentally smashes her face into the birthday girl's piece of cake. She moves to help up her embarrassed friend, wiping her face inexpertly with a tissue until Sumia comes into the room at the sound of her daughter's crying. The gentle woman thanks Lucina while leading the sniffling Cynthia into the bathroom to clean her up, and Severa glances at Lucina's now empty plate and her own uneaten piece. She tries to slice it in half as evenly as she can with her fork before dumping a portion onto Lucina's plate and huffing at the startled girl's look. “You're the birthday girl. You need cake.” 

Lucina's eyes soften. “Thank you.” And she actually begins eating Severa's cake while the latter bats away Owain's and Inigo's teasing jibes. 

Later when everyone is giving her gifts, Severa hands Lucina a card she spent the last week working on with giggling suggestions from her mother and her father's guiding hand in drawing the bubbles and words. Lucina takes such a long look at it that the parents are glancing at each other and the kids start whispering. Severa flushes from all the looks cast her way. She's about to say something when Lucina slowly places the card on the table and throws herself at a startled Severa, looping her arms around her friend's neck and whispering that she loved it in her ear. Her own mother teases Severa about the slight flush she wears for the rest of the day.

Owain leads her past the thick trunks of trees onto a route that's relatively flat and free of pebbles, chattering all the while. Outside the path, the trees rise around them, clustered between juts of stony fingers. Severa catches glimpses of him under the intermittent bursts of sunlight overhead, and he's handsome in a boyish way with his dreaming eyes and beautiful smile that reminds her of a day on the edge of slipping into night. She gazes at the frame of his shoulders, the line of his jaw that has yet to roughened out, and she imagines that if this was a fairy tale, he would be her prince and she—his princess. They'd ride horses by the day, and he'd spend the nights telling her how beautiful she was. He'd carry her when she was tired, and she would cook for him for when he came home, enchanting her with tales of his latest adventure across treacherous waters and devastating deserts until she's ignited with the desire to go with him. They'd travel worlds together and win wars in lands unheard of.

He squirms out of her grasp and darts into a clearing filled with purple and yellow flowers, lifting his arms to the sky. “We should call this place the Garden of the Can't Sleep Knights.” 

Or maybe not.

“Look!” He runs up to a pile of stones that sit in front of a cliff face and gestures to it in a spinning flourish. “Ta-da!”

Severa looks at the rubble—pieces about the size of her forearm put together in a haphazard bundle—before meeting Owain's gaze. “You told me to come here to show me rocks?”

Owain looks wounded, as if it's her fault that she can't see the interest in a mess of stones taller than they are. “No, you have to see what it can be!”

An avalanche of rocks?

Owain grabs at a speckled piece half the size of his head and yanks it out before Severa can shout in alarm. The cascade of miniature boulders never comes, and the blond boy stands there triumphantly with the stupid stone still held overhead. “See! It's a passage!” He hurls it aside and quickly begins to tear out other rocks until a hole that they can barely squeeze through starts to form. “Come on.” 

He pushes himself through the dark crevice and after a few seconds of hesitation, Severa joins him. She's caught between two rock shelves that forces the girl to turn sideways to avoid scraping herself on them as she passes through. There's space at her feet though—enough that a grown adult can crawl through, but Severa is not going to go on her hands and knees through a dirty floor. 

She walk into a cavern large enough to fit their class of 20 students. Stalagmites jut up from the sandy bottom like the thin teeth of an ancient beast while a pool of water floods the ground between them. A single hole in the ceiling of the cavern allows sunlight to illuminate the water, the entrance where Severa and Owain stand, and little else.

The excited boy gestures wildly to the cavern beyond them. “Isn't it cool?”

“A cave,” Severa says, flatly. That's it. She's going home.

“Not just any cave! A cave for heroes!” He grins at her, the excitement palpable in his eyes. “We'll be legends! I'll be king and you the queen, and we can storm the heavens together! Or I'll be a terrifying protector to a lord of the land, sending enemies running with my sword and words of magic!” He looks at her. He pauses. “And you can protect the princesses! Severa the Scary who can stop armies with her glare and wrestles bulls and—”

Wrestle bulls? What kind of weirdo comes up with an idea like that? 

“—and we'll save worlds from bad guys and evil, and then we'll disappear like the mysteries we are!” With a whirl, he leaps to her, grinning so widely that Severa thinks his smile cracked his face. “What do you think of that?”

“It sounds dumb,” Severa snorts, but she's intrigued by the idea. “Wait, why is my name Severa the Scary?”

Owain doesn't answer, because he darts into a dark part of the cavern, hidden by a single stalagmite by the edge of the water. “Check this out! I found out that these rocks can hide treasure!”

Severa follows him and sees Owain removing a thin slab of rock that reveals a hole the size of their science textbook. He gabs on, excitedly. “We can hide gems and gold and loot in here.”

“Wait, are we pirates, or are we warriors?” 

“Yes!” Owain replaces the slab and jumps up. “This is going to be so cool! Having secret meetings here and forming our own knight group. We'll call ourselves the Mystletainn Might.” 

They are calling themselves no such thing. “I don't want this! Why are you showing me this anyway?”

His smile falters. “I'm showing you this, because you told me you wanted to be an adventurer too.” His shoulders drop, and he looks smaller, scared. “Or did I get it wrong?”

Ugh...Owain's annoying, but Severa doesn't really want to be the one who breaks the boy's spirit. “I don't know. Can we get out of here first?”

“Oh, yeah. Sure.” He leads them out through the tight passageway and back into the clearing, replacing the rocks in the passageway with a reverence. “So, umm...what do you think?” He looks at her with hopeful eyes.

Severa's not sure when crawling through a bunch of rocks is ever going to be cool. “I need to go home. Can you take me out of here?'

Owain's face falls, and Severa hates that she's the cause of it. “Yeah. Come here.” He takes her hand again, and he trudges towards the river, head down and pace sluggish. He moves as if someone told him his puppy died. 

Severa can't take it anymore. “Ugh. Fine! It's awesome, Owain. We'll be great warriors.”

He lifts his head, staring at her before his grin pops back onto his face. “Yeah! We will! We'll be the coolest! And we won't invite Inigo!” he scowls. “He spends too much time dancing with his mom anyway!” 

Severa thinks of Mrs. Montoya with her shy smiles and the way she weaves across the dance floor with a rhythm and ease that makes any spectator believe that every song she dances to was made for her. “She's really pretty.” 

Owain sticks his tongue out. “Ew!” 

Severa snaps, “You're ew!” 

Something catches Severa's eye, and she pulls away from Owain to peer at something dark in a tangle of bushes full of red berries and thorns. She approaches it slowly, recognizing the object as a ragged piece of cloth caught in the brambles, hardly large enough to cover her palm. The more curious thing is what looks like the thick end of a tome hastily shoved under the bush's thorns. “Someone left a book!”

“A book?” Owain appears beside her and his eyes light up when he spots the strange object. “It's a mystery!” 

“Don't touch it!” Severa snaps as the blond boy retreats from the bush with a pout. “Let me get it out.” She doesn't want to touch the brambles, so she picks up a thick stick from a nearby trail and pokes at the book, sliding it out of the bush in spurts. 

“Hurry up, Severa! I want to look at it!” Owain bobs up and down, irritating Severa so much that she jabs at him with her stick. “You already found an adventure! You're incredible!” Owain grins at her. “When we're grown up, I'll marry you.” 

Severa wrinkles her nose. “What if I don't want to marry you?”

“Uh...you can marry Morgan!”

“Ew!” 

“Or Lucina!” he adds, hastily. “We'll be family anyway!” 

The book finally slips out with a final jab from Severa, its leathery, faded cover visible in the morning light. On its front is a closed eye with lines drawn through it, like it's weeping, connecting to a dragon with six wings. On the edges of the book are clamps and steel bindings as if the person who placed them there hoped to seal it shut. There's something off about the colour of the strips of leather that covers the front like it's too close to the colour of her own skin, and Severa stares at the tome, feeling an urge to shove it back into the bush.

“We gotta open it, Severa! It's our destiny to be heroes!” He grins. “Evil will shake at our names, and we'll cleave our foes in two.”

Severa frowns, “What does cleave mean?”

“Err...” Owain turns to the book. “We should check this out!” He begins to unfasten the bindings on the book and flips open to the a page that crinkles in the sunlight, faded and slightly yellow. Lines of letters appear on the pages in a swirling style like they've been drawn with ink, but Severa doesn't recognize the language and trying to sound out the words makes her feel like she's twisting her tongue. Owain's not faring much better if the crease between his brows and the constipated expression on his face is any indication. He flips through the pages impatiently, flipping past lengthy lists, diagrams, maps, and charts of lands neither of them can identify. He gets to the middle of the book where a detailed sketch of six eyes connected by weeping lines twist together into a singular point. The illustrations behind that page are disturbing. 

Owain quickly goes through page after page, his face whitening with each new picture while Severa suppresses an urge to throw up, closing her eyes after glimpsing at an image of priests stretching out a screaming girl. But he can't seem to stop turning the pages, and Severa feels compelled to watch him, stuck to the spot as if frozen in time. He goes through image after image until he reaches the last page where six large eyes are drawn in matted red lines against a sea of black as if the artist had thrown the contents of their inkwell onto the book. They stare at the two children, and in a second that lasts a lifetime, Severa swears that the eyes crinkle as if whoever they belonged to are pleased at what they saw. She sees them blink.

Severa screams and slams the book shut. Owain falls backwards onto his butt, heaving and looking as sick as that time he got the flu last year. And beside the thorny bush, Severa swears she hears someone whispering in a low, unrecognizable language between the panting of her and Owain's breaths. 

Owain gets up first, shaking. “That's enough of being heroes for today.”

Severa pushes herself to her feet. “What do we do with that? We should leave it.” Or burn it. Burn it with a lot of fire.

“No, we should take it to our parents. There's something wrong with it.” 

Owain shares a glance with Severa, and she knows that he's right. She says, “You pick it up, then.”

“Uh...my dad always said, 'Ladies first'.” He yelps when she slugs him in the arm. “Okay! I'll do it!” Puffing out his chest, he stares down at the book as if trying to intimidate it. “I'm going to be a legend one day, so I need to be brave.” He redoes the bindings and the clamps back onto the book, and holds it up triumphantly for a few moments before a sick expression slips onto his face, and he goes paler than Severa's father does that time he catches her climbing on the roof.

“Owain, what's the matter?” The next question dies on her lips as he drops the tome with a thud, smoke rising from the red-lined marks burning on his palms in the shape of an eye. “Owain!”

Severa bolts to him as the shaking boy stares straight ahead. He retches, bent double from the force, his sickness splashing onto the ground and onto Severa's shoes. She doesn't stop running to him as his knees buckle and his eyes roll into his head. “Are you okay?”

She grabs him as he collapses into her, nearly staggering her to the ground. “Owain!” 

Owain's still for a long moment before he coughs and opens his eyes, a strange milky sheen that Severa shrieks at before he blinks, and his normal green eyes look up at her. He stares as if he hadn't expected to wake up. 

“You're okay.”

Owain grimaces, struggling to get up. “We need to move it. It's evil, and we can't leave it here.” 

What? “How could a book be evil?”

He looks at his hands, the bright lines of red searing and bubbling his flesh. “How could a book do this?”

Point taken.

Severa reaches for the tome, and Owain slaps her hands out of the way, shocking her. “Don't touch it!” He holds out his palms to her. The smell of burning flesh reminds her of cooked pork and makes her want to retch. “It'll hurt you too!”

Severa stares at him, noticing the strain in his face and the terror in his eyes, as if the book would hunt and kill him itself. She hesitates for a long moment before pulling off of her jacket that her mom bought her last month and wraps it around the book. Even with the separation of cloth, she feels the book's whispers and pleas to let it mark her as its own, to burn her with the same brands it left on Owain. She holds it as far away from her body as possible. 

Owain bolts ahead back to the clearing as if there's something chasing him, and Severa darts behind him, arms aching from the weight in her hands. She reaches him just as he finishes tearing the last of the stones from the cliff and slips into the passageway without looking back. Severa squeezes through after him, the narrow space between the rock shelves forces her to keep the book close to her stomach, the skin along her arms feeling as if it's trying to crawl away from the tome in her hands. The heat she feels from its steel bindings—if it was trying to sear its mark into her hands too—makes her want to pitch it into the river and never talk about it again.

When she reaches the cavern, Owain emerges from the shadows on her left, and waves her to him, the red-hot markings on his palms looking like there are more lines to it than the last time she saw it, like the brand is creeping down his wrists. “The hole,” he croaks.

Severa hurls the book into the pit along with her jacket, and as she throws it, she swears that the eye on the front cover opens as Owain slides the slab back on top. He winces as his hands struggle to grip the rock. When she steps near him, she hears something like whispers on the wind, a low rumble that has something gripping her heart in a painful, icy squeeze. She shoots backwards as Owain gets up, his eyes drained and his eyes looking like they've aged a lifetime in the minutes between touching the book and burying it. He clenches his hands, and the whispering stops though his skin has gone grey and he looks like he's dying.

Severa grabs his arm and guides him out, going slowly when he stumbles over stones and sticks that he leaped over half an hour before. They make it out into the sunlight in the clearing, and yet, something makes the hair on Severa's nape stand on end. “We should go home.” 

Owain nods as he begins to replace the rocks and Severa stoops down to help him when he struggles to lift some of them, sweat streaming down his shaking face. They finish quickly, and Owain guides them out of the forest with Severa holding him up. When they reach the floating trunk in the river, Severa goes first, grabbing onto his hand when he stumbles and slips across the bark. He smiles weakly at her as she calls him an idiot in a worried tone and manages to get the both of them onto solid ground. 

They don't say anything to each other, merely staring back at the other side of the river until Owain kicks at a clump of dirt in front of him, his hands tucked deep into his pocket. He looks deeply ill, like he might drop dead on his feet if he tried to walk home alone.

“I'll go get your mom.” Severa volunteers. 

“No! I wasn't supposed to sneak out!” Owain's eyes are wide. He looks more fearful of his mother's wrath than whatever happened to him from the book. “I'm fine, Severa. I'll see you later.” 

She stamps her foot. “No, you're not. You look like you could throw up any moment. We're getting your mom.” 

“No!”

“Yes!”

“No!”

“Yes! Stop being so stubborn, Owain!” It's like it ran in his genes or something. “At least, let me walk you home!”

Owain shakes his head and shuffles his feet. “I just need some sleep. I'll see you at school.” He turns and walks away towards his house, and Severa huffs, running after him. She would have smacked him if he didn't look like he would keel over from the blow.

He glances at her, surprised. “I said I was fine!”

“Don't be dumb! I just left my bike near your house,” she sniffs. A second later, she glances at him sidelong to see if he's okay. His jaw is set, and his eyes look grim. She hopes his mother doesn't get too mad at him when she finds out what they did.

Owain and her part ways at the giant oak tree that marks the turn into his street from the riverbank. He refuses to let her come with him for whatever reason, and Severa's anxious about how high the sun has risen since she left earlier.

“Severa, you'll get in trouble if you stay out too long.”

Owain's right. She needs to get back and hop into bed before her mother notices she's gone. 

Glancing down the street and spotting a patrol car lumbering down the paved road, she asks, “Are you going to be okay, Owain?”

He sways slightly on his feet before puffing up his chest and thumping himself. “Never better! It takes more than that to take Owain Dark, king of demons, down!” When Severa doesn't respond, he deflates. “I'll be okay. My house is five minutes away.” 

“Okay.” She wants to walk him home, but her mom would flip her bed if she went to Severa's room and found out that she was missing. “Bye, Owain.”

She pushes off of her bike and starts peddling down the street leading to her house. It's only at the end of the block that she glances back to see Owain waving at her until he became a pinpoint in the distance before he disappears. She makes it to her home, leaning her bike against the back of the house before scaling the tree that sits close to her bedroom window. A branch from the tree is almost at the same level as her window sill, and Severa slowly walks across its length until she reaches the end just before her open window. She slips through and jumps into her big bed as she hears her mother's footsteps coming up the stairs. 

Severa feigns sleep as her mother opens the door, crossing her room and laying a warm hand on her head. "Severa, wake up. We're going on a trip to Valm with Daddy today to visit his friend."

She groans. She's forgotten about that. Cordelia gets her up and dressed, frowning when she can't find Severa's jacket. When they reach the bottom of the stairs that lead to the door, Libra picks her up and carries her out in his arms as they make their way to the car and out of Ylissetol.

When Severa returns from Valm, she learns that Owain never made it home.


	10. Resistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina and Severa debrief with Chrom and an unexpected guest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good news, friends, I got a job! Bad news, friends, I got a job! That being said, it is a little tougher to get these chapters out, and it might be that there'll be shorter ones to make sure at least SOMETHING gets out. As always, comments and thoughts are always welcomed.

Severa counts the number of bottles lining the back of the counters in the examination room, the charts on the walls of fetuses in various states of development, and the number of metal tools she didn't recognize in one container on her doctor's desk—one that looks like a toddler made a hammer. Her right hand is swaddled in an ice pack while her family doctor peers at an x-ray of Severa's hand, her features in an elegant frown. She shows the bored girl the images, pointing the bones that connect to Severa's index and middle fingers and tapping on what looks like cracks near the top of the joints. Severa's glad that she hasn't bumped into Dr. William because that would be too much for this evening, but between Dr. Roche's constant correction of her posture and grammar, she's considering if her hand really needs medical attention that badly. It's really not that broken.

Dr. Roche ends up bandaging up Severa's hand while lecturing her. “You've fractured your second and third metacarpals, which is impressive and will require at least a month of healing. As your doctor, I forbid you from use until it is fully healed in which case you may return if you fracture it again.” She finishes the wrapping, and picks up her clipboard crossly. “And to reconfirm your answers, you broke your hand how?”

“I punched a lamppost,” mutters Severa, not meeting her gaze, “after losing a bet over a race.”

Dr. Roche makes a disapproving sound, shaking her head. The ringlets of her fine blonde hair bump against her shoulders. “If your mother knew that you indulged in illegal gambling, she may have a fit.” Cordelia would definitely have a fit if she knew Severa punched out an officer who knew her. “You're lucky you had that Lucina to bring you in when she did.” 

Yeah, cause Lucina was the one who drove her here. “Are you done? Can I leave?”

The doctor's nose wrinkles. “No, you may not. I've called your mother, and she'll be here shortly to pick you up. Until then, I'll escort you to the waiting room, and you can wait for her there.” 

Severa swears, earning a tight-lipped glare from the doctor. “Sorry.” Not sorry. "I don't want her to know about this." At least, for a while. Severa would like to live as long as possible, thank you very much.

Dr. Roche shakes her head. “Honestly, do you think that your own mother would not find out about this?”

“I would have told her myself.” 

The doctor's pen jots something on the sheet on the clipboard. “I see. I'll just add that to your notes.” She gives her a tight smile. “Are you ready to go to the waiting room?”

Dr. Roche brings Severa out into the waiting room and gestures for her to take a seat in one of the hard plastic chairs that line the walls. The hospital is a small building, not much larger than a clinic, but comes equipped with an x-ray room and three levels of tedious white walls and bureaucracy. A nurse sits at a desk at the front, a electronic counter above her head displaying numbers in red light for patients in line. Whether Severa considers herself lucky or not, her family doctor is doing a shift at the emergency room tonight and quickly took her in after taking a look at the injured girl. It also seems to be a slow night since there's no one but her and the nurse in the room, since Lucina left to wait for her father outside. 

Her mother arrives through the double glass doors of the entrance, looking worried and slightly disappointed. “Oh, Severa. What happened to you?”

“I broke my hand. Clearly.”

Taken back, her mother's brows draw together and the line of her mouth straightens out. That's the look she gets when she's annoyed but trying not to show it. “I see that, but how did you break it?”

Severa blurts, “Why didn't you tell me you were in the military?”

Cordelia's eyebrows rocket up towards her hairline. “Pardon me?”

“Star sniper, first lieutenant, and you met Dad when you were an officer. When were you going to tell me this?”

A tension sets in her mother's jaw. “Where did you find out that information?”

Severa doesn't get to respond, because the sheriff strides into the waiting room with Lucina beside him. He looks briefly surprised at Cordelia's presence but nods to her. Her mother responds with narrowed eyes and a tight smile.

The sheriff takes off of his hat and greets them with the warm smile his children inherited. “Cordelia, and—” He blinks at her before his face lights up with recognition. “—the speeder. So, you're Severa. My wife and daughter have talked a lot about you.”

Severa nods curtly. This is not how she wanted to be introduced to Lucina's father.

Her mother steps forward, tucking Severa behind her, which irritates the bandaged redhead. “Chrom. Why are you here? I've already said no to your proposal.” 

The sheriff frowns but shakes his head. “I respect your decision, but I'm actually here to talk to your daughter. She has some information on a case I've been working on for a while.” 

“Can it wait? She's injured.”

“She was the one who asked to talk to me tonight.” 

Severa's mother turns to look at her, and there's something almost betrayed about her expression. “What is going on that the sheriff has to be involved? You've been keeping a lot from me nowadays.”

Severa snaps, “You're one to talk!”

Lucina clears her throat and steps forward into the middle of the room. “Might I suggest that we take this conversation somewhere more private. I believe we're making the staff uncomfortable.”

They all turn around towards the front of the room where the receptionist waves weakly to them behind her desk while Dr. Roche colours, letting out an offended sniff before quickly closing her door to show that she isn't eavesdropping. She opens it a second later begrudgingly and gestures off to the side of the hall. “If you must, my office is available for a short, private discussion.”

The sheriff thanks her and leads the way down the hall to a room with a spotless desk that has only a single laptop on it as well as two armchairs seated around what looks like a tea table. In the privacy of Dr. Roche's office, they cluster together near the doctor's desk with Severa seated behind it while Cordelia leans way too close to her injured hand like she's trying to protect it with her body. On her other side, Lucina leans against the wall, arms tight across her body; her expression suggests that she wants to join Severa's mother in hovering. The sheriff is, surprisingly, the most relaxed out of everyone. He sits down across from the scowling girl and places his hat on the desk and leans back in his seat. If it isn't for the sharp look in his eyes, he could be mistaken for being at ease.

He asks, “You mentioned that you had something to tell me about Owain?”

Severa takes a breath. She glances at Lucina, whose eyes soften and nods slightly in return. The grip of her mother's hand on Severa's shoulder signals that the gesture does not go unnoticed by Cordelia if the sudden squeeze means anything. Crap.

Everyone waits for her, and in the silence of the room, every word goes off like a gunshot. “I was the last one to see him. Before he got abducted.” The sheriff sits forward and gestures her to go on. She relays everything she told Lucina and everything that's happen this evening. 

Her mother pales at the mention of the officer while the sheriff's eyes narrow at the end of her story. He says, “According to the police report regarding the abduction of my nephew, there had been no witnesses and no clues to suggest what happened, other than he left the house. Are you suggesting that you omitted this information?”

“No, I told your officer who talked to me, but Lucina told me that none of the information ever reached the official report. So, either I'm lying or your officer is.” 

“Which officer did you speak to?”

“The guy with the giant mustache.” That reminds her of a walrus. 

He evaluates her, but his face gives nothing away. "Captain Cervantes. Yes, I'm familiar with him."

"He was nearby when I found Owain in the river, and he was the officer that interviewed me first. I see him everywhere, and yet he said that he couldn't find any evidence to figure out what happened to your nephew." When the sheriff doesn't say anything else, Severa takes a breath. ”I think your department is corrupted.”

Chrom's expression grows hard for a long moment before a flicker of hesitation darts across his face.

He gets up and checks the doorway carefully before moving over the desk and examining the silver laptop, much to Severa's discomfort since she could reach her hand out and brush his chest. “No recording devices, so I'm going to go on my gut and say that you all can be trusted.” 

He takes a seat again, staring ahead. “I already know. It's been so for years when my father was head of the department. And I'm sorry to have deceived you, but I know about the man who spoke to you and the details of his report. I've suspected him of tampering with evidence before, and your testimony of his report only confirms my suspicions. I've been having many doubts about the officers in my service.” 

He glances at Severa's mother, whose grip tightens to the point where her daughter yelps, and Cordelia drops her hand, apologizing. In the light of the nearby lamp, he seems older than Severa thought with lines creasing the corners of his eyes and a brush of grey hair at his temples. “I've done my own investigation to find out which ones are trustworthy. The answer is not many.”

He lifts his eyes to Severa's mother. “Which is why I was hoping that Cordelia would join the department as my assistant sheriff.” 

Lucina's jaw drops. “But that's only just below Uncle Frederick's station.” 

Severa waits for someone to explain but when no one does, she prompts, “What's so special about being an assistant sheriff?”

Cordelia sighs, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “It means should I accept the position, only the sheriff and his undersheriff have more authority than I do in the whole police department.” 

“Wait, what? So, that means the sheriff—”

“Chrom,” he corrects.

“—no, the sheriff offers you one of the most powerful spots in town, and he doesn't think that'll raise suspicion?”

“Given her list of military accomplishments, I doubt that anyone with knowledge of them would say that her position would be undeserved.” The sheriff shifts, counting off his fingertips. “Shot a gun out of a suicidal man's hand at 1500 meters, killed seven men with one bullet—”

How? Were they all in a conga line?

“—and during the war with the Grimleal, took out 90 members alone in a single day without sleep. I should know. I served with her nearly twenty years ago.” 

Really? Severa never knew that. Gods, it was like this town was built on secrets. 

Severa glances at Lucina, who only leans forward in intrigue. So, she already knew.

Cordelia grimaces and runs a hand through her perfect hair. “The ambient air density in the valley we fought in helped with a lot of those kills. And most of these feats are exaggerations.” 

“I can attest that they aren't.” Chrom keeps his steady gaze on her. “I saw a few of them with my own eyes. There's a reason you've gained the nickname 'The Devil of the Break' among the Grimleal, especially since out of 2000 snipers who enlisted, only 500 came back home after the war. Which is why, given the situation at the police department, your skills and integrity would be crucial to rooting out the bad ones.

“There's very few officers I trust.” He looks at Lucina, and his expression softens. “You can rely on Uncle Frederick at least, and I even have an officer staffed undercover at the high school just in case.” 

Lucina asks, "But what about the others? Aunt Sully? Uncle Kellam?"

"I can vouch for them too, but for most of the other officers, I would say be on your guard." 

Great. They're not even safe with the police in this town. 

The sheriff turns to Severa. “Now, there is the matter of the book you and Owain found. If we can get a hold of it, we can examine what the Grimleal were looking for.” 

Severa snarls, “Did you hear my story? I'm not retrieving it!” 

He frowns, his brows jutting forward slightly. “It's evidence. Refusing to retrieve it could be considered obstruction of justice. Even more than that, examining the book will give us a greater chance of finding Owain's murderers.”

“It's cursed, or did you miss that part?” 

Cordelia reprimands her. “Severa, be more respectful. You are talking to the sheriff and Lucina's father.”

Severa bites her tongue to avoid responding right away. She stares at the violin in a glass case on a counter on the far side of the room beside a picture of a young Brady grinning. She takes a long breath before saying, neutrally, “I don't think getting it would be the smartest thing to do right now, since it would draw the Grimleal's attention. I know you want to resolve Owain's murder, but bringing them to us isn't the best move. They've been looking for it for a long time, and they've shown they're willing to do anything to get it back, including killing anyone who has what they want.” 

The sheriff studies her for a long time before he sits back, smiling as if seeing something he likes. It drives Severa crazy, because she doesn't know why. “That's a smart assessment. My wife would have said the same thing.”

Okay, being compared to Lucina's mom is weird and creepy on so many levels. 

He continues, “As long as we have an idea of where it is, that would be adequate for now. That being said, I would still like to interview the officer you fought, since she seems to have some knowledge on the Grimleal's movements. What did she look like?”

Severa snaps, “I don't know. Short, blue hair. Lucina's height. Kind of mouthy and alcoholic?”

Cordelia frowns. “That sounds like Pamela. She was a soldier working with me. I was mentoring her before I was discharged from duty.” Her frown deepens. “She used to follow me around quite a bit.”

“I see.” The sheriff eyes Severa's mother. “If you have any details to share with me, I would appreciate it.” He turns to look at his daughter by the wall. “Lucina? You've been awfully quiet so far. Are you okay?”

Lucina pushes herself from the wall, a curtain of dark hair falling across her face. “I am, but there's something I've been wondering. Why did you never take the lead in Owain's investigation?”

“I tried.” Chrom's jaw tightens. “But I was told by some officers from the Emblem that if I was seen working on the case, any evidence I collected has a high chance of being impeached because of my relationship to Owain. Any case I build may be dismissed in court when we brought the people to justice. My subordinates advised that I leave the investigation to them.” He brings his hands together, leaning into his tented fingers. “But when they didn't find anything, I got suspicious and started looking into them.” 

Lucina presses, "But you're also giving up on Severa's lead on Grimleal rather easily."

Chrom shakes his head. "I have ones of my own, but knowing that we have an idea of what the Grimleal is looking for gives us an advantage. That, and I worry about—" He goes silent. "You're nearly an adult now, and I can trust you with a little more of the truth. Your uncle Frederick hasn't been able to sleep well since Owain was killed. I'm afraid if he catches wind of what we know, the obsession will kill him." 

Severa flinches at the name and ducks her head. Frederick William has looked like he's aged three decades in the years since Owain died with his good looks deteriorating into a haggard, grief-stricken misery for a few years before a coldness comes into his eyes and he began shaving his hair and beard, as if trying to cut off everything that made him the man he used to be. He glares at her whenever they cross paths like he knows that it was her fault that his son is dead.

Lucina glances at Severa, jolting the young redhead out of her thoughts. "Perhaps, if you two talk to Uncle Frederick and share what you know, it might actually relieve how he feels about the situation." 

Severa panics for a couple of seconds before her mother shakes her head and comes to her rescue. Or so she thought. "She could if she wasn't grounded for six months.”

Six months! Severa asks, “Why am I grounded?”

Her mother sighs. “Even if it was in self-defence, the facts are that you assaulted an officer, endangering both you and Lucina, and broke your hand. If anything, being grounded for six months is light punishment, considering that should the military wishes to press charges, you are going to be in a serious mess. It'll also stop you from doing activities that'll break your hand again.”

Lucina steps in. “It's my fault that she broke her hand. I was the one who insisted on speaking with an officer, and a fight broke out when the officer mistook Severa for you. She also told us... that the Grimleal were restarting the child hunts.”

Chrom's lips thin out, and a flash of fury darts over Cordelia's face. Lucina continues on. "And there are soldiers gathering in Regna Ferox like they're waiting to fight a war. I don't know what's happening, but I don't know if any of us is safe." She looks at Severa, and a strange, terrified expression flits across her face. "Which is why I think informing us of what's happening is the best bet to keep us safe should the Grimleal begin abducting from here again. Or to go one step farther and start training us to defend ourselves should we find ourselves in a dangerous situation."

The room goes quiet before Severa's mother shakes her head. “You're too young to be involved in this.” 

Lucina's dad remarks, “We weren't much older when we enrolled in the military And it would not be a bad idea to train them in some self-defence.” He studies his daughter. “I agree with Cordelia that we don't want you getting into any danger, but I also want you to be able to fight off attackers in the event that we aren't there for you.” He swallows. “Like we weren't there for Owain.” 

Lucina peers at her father. “So, you would train me?” She glances at Severa. “Or us? Would you teach us how to shoot a gun?”

The sheriff shakes his head. “I can train you in self-defence, yes, but Cordelia was an instructor for her sniper unit. If anyone would be suited for teaching someone how to use a firearm, it would be her.” 

“I was the main instructor for my former unit.” Cordelia's expression is conflicted—laden with hesitation and an odd kind of grief. “I can't...” Her face twists with pain. She seems unable to continue.

Severa watches her fingers clench on the desk. She bites her lip. "You don't have to do it. I could always train with Lucina and her dad."

Cordelia sighs, “You're still grounded, Severa. You're not even allowed to go out after school ends.”

Of all the—

Lucina clears her throat. “I'm sorry, Miss Faulkner, but Severa has been practicing with me in order to join the soccer team. Does that rule also apply to our training?” 

“Yes, she can continue with that, but I'll have to supervise the training from now on.”

When Severa protests, and to their parents' surprise, Lucina joins in, Cordelia pinches the bridge of her nose as if she has a headache. “Severa, even if this wasn't a disciplinary measure, how safe are you going to be driving home with only one hand?”

“I'm a better driver than most of the idiots on the road, even with a broken hand!” Severa retorts. 

Cordelia just looks at her, and Severa glares back in a staring contest like two bears confronting each other at their edge of their territories. She ends up dropping her gaze and grumbling to herself. She's not dumb enough to risk the consequences of deliberately disobeying her mother. "Fine. But only until this thing comes off." 

Her mother shakes her head and gestures for her to stand. "We'll be leaving, so Severa can rest. My answer still is no, Chrom."

"Cordelia." The sheriff stands up, and he hardly stands more than two inches taller than Severa's mother. "I've got some information that the Grimleal have started moving around Valm. If they attack the city, we'll all be drawn in, including your family. You won't be able to protect them alone, and you can't run from something that needs you. Not when it's our peace on the line." 

Cordelia clenches her jaw. She turns away. "We'll see what happens when the time comes." She sweeps Severa out of the room after a curt goodbye to Lucina and her father, despite the younger redhead's protests. Severa glances backwards into the room to see Lucina in deep conversation with her father, both shaking their heads slightly, and begins to feel worry writhing in her belly. 

The worry is justified the next day when Severa listens to the radio in her kitchen and learns that Valm had been bombed during the night.


	11. Time is Running Out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa makes it through the first week of being grounded, bombings at Valm, and questioning the status of her relationship with Lucina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quote about gossip from Ziad K. Abdelnour, Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics. Yes, I'm quoting stuff now.
> 
> I'm also running out of Muse's song titles to steal for my chapter titles.

The Ylissetol sheriff department issues a curfew for all children under 18 immediately following the news of Valm's bombing. The news from the attacked city comes over in fragments through the radio and TV—a mishmash of confused speculations and panicked reports that Severa strains to sift through when she's not scrolling through outraged posts outline to find out what happened. Two districts in Valm had been bombed with the greater amount of deaths coming from a small club in the entertainment block, fire trapping party-goers inside while firefighters spent three hours trying to put on the monstrous flames roaring down the streets. None of the people in the club survived, and it's still less horrifying than the results of the second bomb. That one had been placed in a hospital. 

Her father turns off the radio and places his hands together in a prayer. There's an odd expression of guilt on his face. "Naga, we need you in this time." He bows his forehead to his fingers, and it takes Severa a moment to recognize that his hands are shaking, which frightens her because she's never seen him less than calm and steady. She jumps up from the table and makes him his favourite chamomile tea in a red mug that's been around for ages, the white lettering almost rubbed out to faint lines. He stares at the mug as if he doesn't see it before getting up and pulling her into a hug, stroking her hair. He murmurs something soothing, low, and Severa can't help but wonder if it's more for him than her.

She's about to ask him when she hears her mother shutting off the TV in the living room before marching into the kitchen and ordering her in a clipped tone to go upstairs and finish her homework. Severa argues that it's only Saturday morning, but the tight lines around her mother's eyes prevent her from committing to it. Her mother looks deeply worried.

Cordelia points out that Severa is grounded, and the young girl's sympathy for her mother goes out the window. The annoyed girl vents about the situation over the phone to a sympathetic yet highly concerned Noire in the enclosure of her bedroom several hours later. 

Her friend breaks into Severa's rant about ten minutes in. “Could...could you go over how you broke your hand again?”

“Ugh, Noire. It's already in the past. Let it go.” Severa rolls onto her back in her bed, throwing an arm over her face. She curses when her splint bounces off of her forehead.

There's hesitation on Noire's end before she presses on. “I'm just a little confused. Why were you fighting that officer, and why did you have to talk to Lucina's dad?”

“I...” Severa hesitates. She doesn't know if she should tell Noire about Owain. “He wanted to take some notes from when I punched the soldier.”

“Are you in trouble?”

“I don't know,” Severa sighs. “I don't really know what's going on anymore.” 

Noire makes a soft sound. “How're things with Lucina?”

Severa has several texts from her. She hasn't checked Lucina's messages yet, because, gods, does she need space from everything that's been going around her.

“They're whatever.”

Noire makes a noise that Severa recognizes as disbelief. “I suppose if you say so...”

“What?” Severa hears the sharpness of her tone and winces. It could slice into thick skin. “I mean, spit it out, Noire. You got something to say.”

"It's just...you two are dating, right?"

Severa frowns. "I guess? What's your point?"

“I'm just surprised you're not calling her about this.”

“I have a life outside of her.” A pause. “Wait, what is that supposed to mean?”

“Well, she's your girlfriend and everything—”

Severa's brain falters at the words and has to rewind over what Noire said. “Hey! We've only been dating for, like, three days. That doesn't make her my—”

“Oh, sorry. I thought you two were—.”

“We've only been on, like, one date! I don't count the last one, because I broke my hand and had to talk to her dad.”

“...umm...okay. Does Lucina think the same way?”

“Of course, she does!” Oh, crap. Severa needs to check. “Enough about me. What about you and Inigo?”

“Well, there was nothing there to begin with. I think there still might be nothing there.” 

“No luck, huh?” Severa rolls onto her stomach, careful not to land on her injured arm. “We'll need to get him to see how much he's losing out by ignoring you.”

“He doesn't ignore me, but he does seem to go out of his way to talk to you or Lucina.” Noire sighs, “I wish I had the self-confidence that both of you have.” 

What self-confidence? “Noire, it's easy. He'll talk to anything pretty, and you've definitely got that going for you. Just stand in his way when he walks down the hall, and he'll be drooling all over you in seconds.” 

“I don't know. There are rumours that he likes you.” 

Eew. Gods, why? “Rumours are just—” Severa searches her brain for a quote her mother read to her once. “—rumours are carried by haters, spread by fools, and accepted by idiots.” 

“Then, I guess I'm an idiot, because I'm fairly sure he likes you.” There's a sniff on the other end. Noire sounds like she's on the verge of crying. “I don't blame him.” 

“Hey, just because people are saying them doesn't make them true! Remember those stupid rumours about the tunnels underneath the school? The ones that lead to different parts of town?” 

Severa had convinced Noire to look for them one boring history class last year and got her nervous friend to walk through a mysterious hole in the side of one of the school's buildings that lead to a sloping cavern filled with abandoned chairs, desks, and spiderwebs. It was creepy to say the least. They didn't get much farther than a few meters before the janitor emerged from the darkness and sent the young girls screaming as they shot out of the building, splitting into different directions once they hit sunlight. They didn't talk about the incident for several months.

Severa prompts, “Remember how they weren't really based on anything but old scary stories from our parents?”

“We never did fully check them out though.” 

“That's not the point. The point is that most rumours are completely untrue.”

“Like the ones about you?”

Severa goes quiet. “Yeah, like the ones about me.” She stares up at her white stucco ceiling. “Are they saying that I'm part of a cult going around kidnapping children?”

Noire hesitates. “Some do. There's a new one that says you're recruiting people for an underground fighting ring that no one can speak about.”

That one gets a snort out of Severa. “Gods, they get stupider and stupider. Next, they'll say I'm a secret agent of the Emblem or something.”

“Oh! You can be Sable! Sable was my favourite one from the TV series.” 

“Ugh, no way. Sable got so whiny and emo after season three. I'm totally Vert—cool and competent all the way.” 

“Well, you're more hot-headed like Gules...”

They spend the rest of the call debating which Emblem character they best resembled, commenting on illogical aspects of the show like having all five agents living in a hidden base in a volcano. Severa argues that having an underground base would make more sense, given that it's easier to hide and defend without the the constant fear of lava running over them. Noire thought hiding in a haunted forest would make a great show premise, since the Emblem was historically based near the forests between Ylissetol and Plegia. It's a shame that the descendent of the original Emblem has evolved into a centre of civil and military bureaucracy.

“Do you think they're still around?” Noire asks, softly. “The kind of heroes that the Emblem used to be made of? Men and women who bore gods' blood in them?”

Severa scoffs, “They haven't been seen in ages since King Marth united the land. And honestly, it's probably just a—" She pauses. "I don't really know." 

It's only when Severa's father calls her to lunch that she says goodbye to Noire and heads downstairs.

When she gets back to her room, she notices that she's received another handful of texts from Lucina, asking if she was doing okay, and several missed calls. Grinning, Severa starts to answers her back before she realizes what she's doing and sets the phone down onto her sheets with a scoff. She manages to spend twenty minutes away from it before she dives towards her bed again and sends off a flurry of texts to Lucina, finishing with a growing well of giddiness and self-loathing. What is she doing being such a sap? It's not like she has it bad or anything.

...does she?  
__

School has gone much quieter when she returns on Monday, save for the idiotic questions she gets that ask what happened to her hand. The students are subdued as are the teachers who glance at the police officers that seem to make patrolling the outskirts of their school a priority now. Severa swears that she catches the shadow of a fat man with a bristly moustache in the parking lot as she rounds the corner towards it, and it's only with Noire's physical intervention that she doesn't charge around to confront him. The shadow quickly disappears, which makes Severa wonder if she's seen it in the first place.

Lucina seems more protective though with the way she hovers close to Severa, standing at her injured arm like a bodyguard. It does not help the whirl of whispers around them at all, but she doesn't seem to care if the way she follows Severa into lunch with Noire is any indication. 

Noire blinks when Lucina joins them outside the cafeteria building under the shade of some trees. “Er...hi. You don't often eat with us.”

“I thought I should change that.” Lucina gives the dark-haired girl a smile that has Severa's heartbeat tripping over itself. “And besides, I don't know you very well, and I feel that it's a shame.” 

Noire drops her gaze to the ground. “I'm not really that interesting.” The charms in her hand jingle as she rubs her fingers along them. 

“Your doodles in class are really good,” Lucina's expression is gentle. “I would envy half the talent you use in drawing those.” 

Noire colours, and she ducks her head. She mutters a “thanks” and quickly bites into her sandwich to avoid conversation.

When it's clear that the dark-haired girl doesn't want to talk, Lucina turns to Severa, and the look in her eyes makes Severa's breath stop. It's the adoration in them that the redhead doesn't understand. “How is your hand?”

Severa holds up the ugly bandaged limb, swathed in bandages of a garish pink colour that's more punishment in itself than her fractured bones. “Still broken.” She pokes clumsily at her salad with a fork in her left hand. “And completely useless.”

Lucina eyes her situation before picking up Severa's lunch container and lifting a heaping of arugula and watercress to her face with the fork. “I can help.”

Heat floods into Severa's cheeks. “I'm not an invalid!” she snaps, and Lucina's face falls slightly at her tone. “I mean, I know you're trying to help and—”

“I'm making things worse.” Lucina glances to the side, something fleeting in her expression before sadness takes over. “I'm sorry. I thought I could help you when you were injured, and, yet, I have proven myself to be completely incapable of reading the situation—”

Severa throws up her good hand. “Oh, for gods' sake! Fine, you can feed me!” She points at Noire who turns her face away with a hand clasped over the smile Severa knows she has. “And you—don't you dare say a word.” 

Noire waves at her to signal that she heard, still unable to face the pair. 

Lucina leans forward, earnest in her efforts to attend to Severa. “Please chew thoroughly. I wouldn't want you to choke.”  
`  
Severa rolls her eyes. “Yes, Mother.” She regrets it a moment later when she envisions her mother lovingly feeding her a bite of salad. She gags, and Lucina retreats, eyeing the fork in her hand with concern. “No, it's not you. Just...ugh! C'mere.” 

Severa takes a bite from the fork, and she's startled by how carefully Lucina maneuvers the utensil, her perfect brows furrowed in that way of hers that shows how much she's concentrating. Not a single splotch of dressing touches her skin, and Lucina's gentle in that she waits for Severa to lean towards her first before moving the fork. Lucina has seen Severa confessing the ties she has to Owain's death, and yet her feeding the injured girl is what makes the redhead feel ridiculously exposed. Noire edges away, like she's intruding on something intimate, and Severa contemplates joining her.

“There.” Lucina sits back when the plastic lunch container in her hands is empty. “Did that help?”

“Yes.” Now, please never do it again in front of Noire. “You should eat your lunch now.” 

Lucina nods and picks up her sandwich from its wrapper beside her. Severa remembers her manners and let out a gruff, "Thank you."

Noire glances at Severa, whose cheeks are as warm as the sun above them. She twiddles with her fingers, sighing. “I wish I had someone to do that for me.”

“Like Inigo,” Severa scoffs while Noire's eyes go wide and her skin a mottled crimson. She looks at Lucina who watches them with a surprised yet contemplative expression. Oops. “Or that new guy that came in. What's his name?”

"It's Gerome," Lucina answers, and Severa wonders why that sounds familiar. The school star studies them both before relaxing in front of a terrified Noire. “How long have you liked Inigo?” 

Noire mutters something and goes a deeper red than Severa's hair. "A y-year now."

"Have you gotten a chance to talk to him? He can be quite nice." 

"No. I...I don't think he'd be interested in a girl like me," Noire finishes, quietly. "I'm not really a good conversationalist. I don't know what to say to him." 

Lucina's expression softens. “I could talk to Inigo for you, and convince him to approach you first.” At Noire's panic look, she adds, "He's very easy-going and kind. I think if you two get to have a conversation, he would see the good things in you like Severa and I do."

Noire blushes at the compliment. She hesitates for a long moment before leaning forward like a shy foal. “Would you? Please?”

Severa throws her hands up in disgust. “What? I offered to do that this morning, and you said that you were worried that he'd think it was pathetic if someone asked for you!”

“Yeah, but Lucina's got...” Noire pauses. “She's not as harsh with her words as you. You come on really strong sometimes.” 

“You mean she's got tact,” Severa points out, which her friend doesn't deny. “Thanks a lot.”

Noire shrugs helplessly while Lucina changes the subject. “So, your mother will be supervising us for the rest of the practices?”

And the rest of Severa's mood sours. “Yeah. As if I don't see her enough at home already. Gods, she's even infringing on my time with you.”

“If you want to spend time together, I could always help you study,” Lucina offers.

What? Human anatomy? “Yeah, no thanks. If it's just the two of us, we're probably not going to get much studying done.” 

Lucina's cheeks are tinged with pink, and she coughs. “I could tutor you in the library if you feel more comfortable with that arrangement. Noire could even join us.”

Noire glances between the two of them and quietly excuses herself. “I think there might be some things you two need to talk about beforehand.” 

Severa watches in shock as she leaves, and Noire turns around only to mouth something like “girlfriends?” back at her. When the dark-haired girl has ducked into a door that leads into the side of the school, Severa stares ahead, not sure of how to approach the subject with Lucina.

In the silence that ensues, the soccer captain takes a long look at the splint on Severa's hand. “It is a good thing you're not trying out for the goalie position.” 

“Thanks for the sympathies,” Severa grouses. "It's not like I broke my hand while on a date with you or anything."

Lucina winces. "I'm sorry," she says, quietly.

"What? No, don't apologize for my idiotic mistakes. That was on me. I broke my hand and ended up with this." She lifts her hideous pink splint to the sun. She almost hisses. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I was the one who insisted that we talk to an officer. I need own my part in what happened too." 

Geez, Lucina and her over-inflated sense of responsibility. That girl would probably end up feeling like she has to save the world someday. “I said it was fine, okay? I don't blame you for anything.” When Lucina still looks uncertain, Severa sighs and reaches out a hand to squeeze Lucina's. “Let's just forget it, all right?”

Lucina looks happier at the contact if not completely convinced at Severa's words. She goes back to eating her sandwich when Severa remembers to ask something important.

“By the way, we're not girlfriends, are we?”

Lucina nearly drops her lunch. “Oh...did you not want to be?”

Oh, crap. “No! Yes! Just...just not so quickly, y'know. I don't want to move in with you by the third date or something.” 

“But you're already meeting my parents,” Lucina points out. 

“Okay, being interrogated by your dad does not count as meeting your parents.” Severa glances around to see if anyone is listening in. “And honestly, Lucina, we're in a mess. I don't know if dating is the best thing to be doing right now since..." Severa thinks of Owain, of Lucina's father. She feels like a failure.

Lucina seems to pick up on it, as the taller girl takes her left hand, squeezing it gently. "I asked you out, Severa. I wouldn't have done so if I didn't see someone worth knowing based on her own merits.” 

“What merits?”

Lucina stares at her. “Do you really not see them?” 

Severa shrugs. She's really not sure what Lucina's referring to. She changes the subject. “It's just I'm still getting to know who you are. And besides, it's not like you've thought about me before this year," she snorts.

Lucina looks at her for a long moment. “I've thought about you for a long time, but if you want to go slowly, I'll wait. It will be worth it.”

Oh geez, how does Lucina know what's the perfect thing to say each time? 

Wait.

“What do you mean you've thought about me for a long time?”

Lucina catches herself and drops her eyes. She turns as red as Severa's hair. “That's...that's a topic for another talk.” She goes back to eating her sandwich and refuses to say another word about the subject. 

Practice after school under her mother's eyes feels like someone laid a blanket over Severa's face and tried to smother her. She might actually prefer it over her mother's constant corrections of her kicking form. 

“Severa, if you plant your foot directly beside the ball when you pass it to Lucina, you'll have more control over your aim. Remember to lock your ankle and drive through.”

What does that even mean? Severa has no idea, as she's clearly not doing it right if her mother's insistent repetition is any indication.

Lucina seems to give her looks of sympathy when she didn't seem awestruck by Severa's mother. And is that a blush on her cheeks?

Cordelia maneuvers Lucina's shoulders into a position that faces the ball head-on. “Keep your body straight when you're doing a driven shot. You need to plant your foot slightly wider than with a pass to get more power.” 

Severa glares at where her mother is touching the flustered athlete, and Lucina gives her an apologetic look. There's a slight pink tinge to her face that Severa is going to have to ask about later. 

She tucks the mental note away while her mother turns her attention back to Severa's passes and kicks, and the younger redhead nearly passes out after her mother runs her ragged around the field. She grits her teeth and struggles to get back onto her feet after falling to her knees. Cordelia orders her to take a break, and Lucina has to bring a water bottle to the gasping girl's lips when Severa doesn't have the strength to hold it herself. Gods, this day could not get more embarrassing.

As Severa tries to recover her energy and her dignity, she notices Lucina watching Cordelia with a strange intensity that leaves the exhausted girl a little rattled. She can't read her at all. 

Lucina looks like she's choosing her words carefully. “I heard from my father that several of the children patients went missing when the hospital was bombed in Valm, but only certain ones. It seems quite targeted.” 

Surprise erupts on Cordelia's face before she stiffens, and her face goes blank. There's something tight about her expression. “That's...that's new. The Grimleal were quite indiscriminate about which children to abduct when your father and I fought them in the war.”

“They seem quite purposeful in how they're attacking now. Their strategy's different.”

Severa's mother frowns. Her brow furrows slightly, and there's a pensive expression on her face. “I don't...” She cuts herself off and straightens up. “That's unfortunate, but that's best left to the authorities in charge.” 

“The same authorities that you rely on to protect us, correct?” When Cordelia doesn't answer, Lucina presses on. “Why would you leave an huge investigation like this with them when you don't even trust them?”

Cordelia jerks back with a stunned expression on her face. It last only a second before fury comes onto her face, and both of the girls know that Lucina crossed a line. “That's enough practice for now. I'll see you tomorrow in class, Miss Flynn.” Her tone is cold enough to freeze the blood in Severa's veins. Lucina winces, and there's a flicker of regret on her face before it's replaced with an odd determination.

Lucina insists, “I mean it, Ms. Faulkner. Why would you leave the lives of your daughter and other people's children in the hands of men and women you don't trust?”

Severa's mother turns a shade darker than her hair. She's furious, but she doesn't have an answer.

Lucina opens her mouth to continue, and Severa slaps her palm over it, startling the taller girl. “Yup, now seems like a good time to end practice. I'll see you tomorrow, Lucina.” 

Severa's mother nods curtly while Lucina looks bewildered and a little hurt. Severa mutters an apology to her when Cordelia begins to put away the soccer ball and training equipment. “I have rarely seen her this mad. Don't push your luck.” 

Lucina doesn't get a chance to respond before Cordelia whisks Severa away, leading the injured girl to her blue jeep in the parking lot. The car ride is deathly silent on the way home with her mother tapping her fingers on the steering wheel with a slight indent between her brows, which means she's thinking hard about something. When Severa asks what she's thinking about, her mother jolts as if startled and merely shakes her head. 

Cordelia doesn't bring up the subject for the next few days, and almost seem distant when teaching at school and when coaching practice for the two girls. She doesn't notice Severa nearly taking Lucina's head off with a badly aimed chip nor when does she comment when Lucina stands closer to Severa than necessary, despite the panicked redhead's hisses. She also leaves to go somewhere for a while after dropping her daughter off at their home, making it back usually after dinner, leaving Severa and father puzzled and worried when she answers their inquiries about where she was with silent shakes of her head.

Near the end of the week, Severa gets her answer about where her mother goes when the both of them come home after practice. Cordelia makes her a plate of dinner before directing her out to the family car after the young girl finishes a meal of roasted chicken and fingerling potatoes. 

They drive to the edge of town, not far from Noire's house and park near the start of a forest. Cordelia signals Severa to follow her, and the student does with a fair amount of grumbling. She becomes curious as they wind along a path for about fifteen minutes, the discolouration of the grass revealing that someone had walked along this path many times over the years. They eventually reach a clearing with large sheets of paper pinned to the trees at the far side. Upon closer inspection, Severa realizes that the sheets are printed with a bullseye target, the paper yellowed and riddled with holes clustering around the centre. 

Her mother turns around and pulls a gun from her purse. They stare at each other.

Severa speaks first. "Well? Are you going to shoot me?" Execution by gunfire might be a little over the top to be considered appropriate parental discipline.

The lines around her mother's eyes tighten. “No, I'm going to teach you how to use this in case you ever need to defend yourself from any attackers like the Grimleal.” 

Severa thinks her eyebrows popped off of her face with how suddenly they shot up. “How happened to saying we were too young to get involved?”

“I'm not recruiting you for a war,” Cordelia sighs, dropping her gaze. “And you are too young, but leaving you defenceless is a luxury I can't afford. And knowing how stubborn you can be, you'd find a way to learn anyway. If you're going to learn how to do this from anyone, it might as well be me, since I was the best sniper instructor in my squad.”

Wow, ego much? Severa's about to ask why her unit got wiped out then when she catches the look in her mother's eyes. The young student snaps her mouth shut.

Cordelia takes a breath and holds out the small firearm. It fits snugly in her hand. “This is a standard issue SIG Sauer pistol issued to officers. I've used it a handful of times during my service, and only when I had no other choice. It's never failed me.”

She places it carefully in Severa's outstretched hand. It's heavier than the young girl thought it would be. “I'm giving it to you for practice, so that you'll know how to use it if...if you ever need to.” 

Severa stares at the piece in her hand, captured by the bright surface of polished steel. “You sure you can train me on this? Weren't you a sniper?”

Her mother says, “I've taught both the use of rifles and sidearms for a few months before I was promoted to first lieutenant. I even personally taught several units and even my own how to maximize their use of their sniper rifles.” Her face contorts with pain. She looks sick, and her next words come out quietly. “I wondered if my inadequate training caused the death of my squad, but your father has always said that it was my instructions that allowed them to last so long against impossible odds.” 

Cordelia closes her eyes. “I don't claim to be perfect, Severa. I've made plenty of mistakes I've regretted, and one of the things that I wished I didn't do was let people put me on a pedestal. It's a hard fall off.” Her shoulders tense up. “That pedestal was the reason why my squad sacrificed themselves so I could escape and tell Lucina's father what happened to help their units could converge on our location. When I finished delivering the message, I rallied the remnants of my squad and kept a hail of suppressive fire so Chrom's unit could invade the Grimleal location and capture their leader. We won that battle, but only a handful out of two hundred soldiers made it out of that firefight with me being one of them. Yet, I was decorated with medals and honourably discharged from the military when I turned in my resignation.” Her mother looks exhausted, her shoulder drooping. “I'm not a hero, Severa. I never was. I'm just someone who survived the war.”

Severa stares at her mother, who always know what to say, what to do, how to do it perfectly. This woman in front of her is a mess of scars, guilt laced in the grooves as if each medal she had earned carried the weight of each life lost. She waits with her hands behind her back like a prisoner waiting for the execution of gunfire, and Severa wonders if that wasn't part of the reason her mother handed the younger redhead her pistol. 

Severa grips the gun by her side. She doesn't know what to say. “How did you kill seven men with one bullet?”

The surprise is clear on her mother's face by the lift of Cordelia's brows. She answers anyway. “One of the men was wearing a vest full of explosives. He was their captain and was moving when I took my shot. I was new, and thought I could make a clean head shot rather than fire at his centre of mass.” She shifts, looking uncomfortable for the first time Severa can recall. “I missed and hit his vest instead. It set off a chain reaction that took part of his squad with him.” She catches her daughter's gaze. “I never meant to kill all of them.” 

“What about the suicidal man with the gun?”

“I was in the area and radioed by my captain to see if I could defuse a situation with a man waving around a gun in a public square near Rosanne. It was a long shot and dependent on luck. Either, I would hit the gun or him, and Naga was on my side. I shot the gun out of his hand as he was bringing it to his mouth, and my captain and the rest of my squad managed to race up and subdue him before anything else happened. He was a civilian whose family had died in a bombing gone awry when...” She swallows. “...when it exploded at a school instead of a known enemy hideout.” 

Gods. “And what about that time you killed 90 Grimleal members?”

“It was—” Her mother's face spasms. “—it was just after I lost nearly everyone. I wanted every member I saw dead, and I nearly killed myself trying to achieve it. I...don't remember much of it. I was in a spot in the crags above the valley where the battle was taking place, covering Chrom's unit. I barely ate, drank—all I was aware of was the need to put in one more bullet in these monsters who've taken the lives of so many of my friends. The only reason I didn't shoot more was because I had nearly collapsed at my gun, and your father had to pull me away from it.”

“Is that when did you met Dad?” 

There's a long pause. “Yes. He pulled me from the battlefield when their leader was captured and stayed by my side in the hospital when I was recovering from my exertion.” Her eyes soften slightly. “I was still so angry, but he was the one who managed to convince me that killing for revenge would only lead to more grief on my part. And he was right. I couldn't find any sort of relief after all the lives I took that day.” 

“But why was he on that battlefield in the first place?”

Cordelia's eyes flick away. “You need to ask him that.” 

Great, more secrets. Just once, Severa would love for someone to just give her an answer. “So, what do you want from me?”

Cordelia takes a breath, straightening out her shoulders. “I want for you to never wonder if your life was worth the lives of others. I want to watch over you, but I know I can't protect you all the time. But I can teach you how to protect yourself, and maybe that'll be enough that you'll never find yourself in a situation where your friends are trading their lives for yours.” Cordelia stands before her, arms still behind her back like they're bound there. “And some days, I ask myself if I have done enough to justify the 190 lives it took to save me.” 

When Severa doesn't answer, she shakes her head. “I don't know the answer either.”

Silence leaks between them, the mood feeling like an hourglass running out of sand. Severa feels words slip away from her mouth, and Cordelia watches her with a resigned expression like a defeated prisoner in front of a firing squad. There's a look in her mother's eyes like glass about to break, and Severa watches the lines of Cordelia's throat move. “Are you disappointed in me, Severa?” Her voice drops to an almost inaudible whisper. “Do you hate me?”

Severa shakes her head. How could she ever hate her mother for being caught in a bad situation and making the most of it? “Why did you become a teacher after the war?”

Cordelia smiles briefly. “I've always had a love for literature and for inspiring people around me to learn more the beauty of words to move people and lead them. It...it was what got me promoted to first lieutenant, and this last war had been a war of ignorance, of young soldiers warped by the mentality needed to fight a war started by old men. I thought that if I could teach people to admire the beauty in others found in books, to think for themselves, there would be less ignorance in the world and less war.” Her shoulders slump, and her expression crumbles. “But it seems that I've failed.” 

No. 

She hasn't.

Severa asks, “Can you teach me to shoot like you? To lead like you?”

“I don't...I don't ever want a soldier's life for you, Severa.” 

“But you said that you wanted people to think for themselves, right? What if I thought that this was right for me? That I should learn how to protect myself, so I can protect others too. Who better to learn how to shoot from than from a woman who helped stop a war?”

Cordelia lifts her head, and there's an awed look in her eyes that embarrasses Severa. She opens and closes her mouth—struck of words for the first time her daughter has ever seen her. She almost looks grateful.

Severa shifts uneasily. “So, how do we start? We're here to practice, right?”

Her mother watches her Her voice comes out softly. “I've put in blanks to begin with.” She gestures towards the paper sheets far from them. “We'll start you learning with your uninjured hand.” 

“Wait, how am I supposed to shoot with my left hand? My aim will be off.” 

“Practice, Severa. You don't always get a chance to shoot with the hand you want. It's good practice to be able to switch from your strong hand to your support hand or vice versa.” 

Cordelia takes the gun from Severa and faces the trees across from them. She faces the target straight on, placing her right fist over her chest just before her left shoulder. “You can stand sideways for testing your marksmanship skills, but in real combat, that leaves your entire side exposed to gunfire and risks a bullet striking a vital organ.” She punches out the gun from her side, turning it slightly sideways. “Keep your arm stiff but with a bend in the elbow. You want to have a strong wrist so the gun can cycle properly between its bullets, and canting the gun helps with that.” She pulls the trigger and lands a shot half an inch from the centre of a bullseye. She frowns. “Guess I've gotten rusty.” 

Severa takes the firearm from her, holds it up, and fires off a shot that goes wildly somewhere to the left where a flock of crows barrel out of a tree. She thinks she hit a bird. 

Cordelia smiles. “That's not a bad first shot. I think my gun jerked out of my hand on my first try.” She corrects Severa's posture and gets her to fire again. Her mother shows her how to shoot from a right hand position and left hand one, and, of course, Cordelia is an excellent ambidextrous marksman. 

“Where am I shooting if I'm using a gun on someone?”

“If you must use it on someone, aim for their upper torso.” Cordelia gestures to her chest and the area around it. “You have a better chance of hitting something and downing them.”

“Would that kill them? Couldn't I just shoot to wound instead?”

Cordelia shakes her head. “This isn't the movies, Severa. People move, and it's not easy to hit an arm or a leg. If you only have one shot, you might as well aim for the torso to give yourself a better chance to remove the threat.”

Severa swallows. “What if...what if I have to kill them?”

“If you must kill someone, and you think you can take the shot, aim for the nose if you are facing them head-on. The shot will go through the skull and sever their C3 vertebrae, killing them instantly,” Cordelia says, softly. “They won't even know what happened. Otherwise, shots into the centre of the mass can sometimes be fatal too.” 

“Guess you have lots of experience with that,” Severa scoffs, feeling immediately guilty at how her mother's face falls slightly at her comment. “I mean, it's not a bad thing. You can teach me better because of it.” She's done failing this conversation now. “It sounds really messy though.”

“Severa, giving someone a quick death is as humane as you can get.”

Severa finds it's odd that there's a humane way of killing someone. “But how do you do it? How are you able to aim the gun at someone and pull the trigger?” She grips the gun tightly. “That seems impossible to me.”

Cordelia looks at her for a long time. “It depends on what's on the line if you don't. Are you willing to risk losing it? If not, then it's not a case of being able to fire at someone, it's about having to do it regardless.

“For me, it was wanting to protect everyone at home that made me enlist. Their love for me kept me going on days when I felt like we couldn't win.”

“Wait, how does that even help?” Was there a magic button to use the power of love?

Her mother steps forward and brushes a wayward lock of her daughter's hair back behind her ear. “Severa, being deeply loved by someone gives you strength while loving someone deeply gives you courage. And it was the love of you and your father that gave me the ability to go out and rebuild my life after the war. You may not understand this now and think it sounds very cliché, but one day, it'll click for you. And as for the shooting, this is just a precautionary measure. I pray that you never have to use it, and I hope that you forgive yourself if you do.” 

Cordelia presses a kiss to her daughter's forehead and goes off to retrieve the paper sheets at the far side of the clearing. Severa holds the gun by her side. She's troubled by how heavy it feels.


	12. Joyride - Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More bad news, courtesy of Valm's bombing. Severa gets more training from her mom and an unwelcomed talk from her doctor, and she starts to doubt her relationship with Lucina.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Credits goes to Ellisama for a certain scene we chatted about all the way back in an earlier chapter. Shorter chapter, because that's all I can get out for now. More to come soon!

Her mother takes her out for several weeks to practice how to shoot, and Severa gets good enough that she can hit consistently near the centre of the target with her left hand. Cordelia seems satisfied with her progress if her lack of corrective comments is any indication. She's even starting to praise Severa, which startles the younger redhead so much the first time that she nearly shot herself in the foot.

Cordelia gently shifts the barrel of the gun until it's facing the trees across from them. "Good effort. Let's try to aim a little higher, shall we?" She stands back and lets Severa fire off another shot. "You're learning so fast. I wouldn't be surprised if you wouldn't need me to teach you at all soon. You've got a quick mind." 

Severa feels ten feet tall and bullet-proof when her mother says that about her.

The praises from Cordelia follow her into school like the cooking class that her mother teaches and that Severa joins, because Cordelia is very, very persistent. 

Severa's mother glances over their workstation, giving Severa a compliment on her foresight in preparing ingredients for her partners Yarne and Brady to assemble. She then advises Brady to add the sugar and milk more evenly next time to make it easier to mix their dough before departing to check on the other side of the class.

Brady dumps the mixture onto a floured cooking board and begins to knead. "Ya gonna help, or are ya going to keep staring after the teacher like a calf trailing its momma?"

"Shut up." Severa feels her cheeks flare up. "You're not one to talk."

Brady shrugs. "I just call 'em like I see 'em." He goes quiet, his eyes fixed on the dough in his hands. "How's my pops doing, by the way?"

"Why don't you ask him yourself?" Severa's sick of dodging her neighbour every time he sees her, because he's always asking her 17 million questions about Brady. It's gotten to the point where Severa's practically running the other way when she sees him waving and walking towards her. "You two got a phone and everything."

"Ma doesn't like it when I talk to him, and I don't wanna rock the boat. I'm fine not talking to him. I just wanna see how he is." Brady stops kneading. He looks so sad. "Plus, he's got a life and all, being on the force and everything."

Severa shakes her head. "Brady, your dad's your dad. He's not going to stop caring about you, because he and your mom don't get along."

Brady ducks his head, so Severa can't see his face and goes back to making their scones. "You're lucky to be able to talk to both of your parents so easily."

"As if. Have you seen how my mom bosses me around? She—"

"Nuh-uh. You ain't fooling me. You adore your mom, Severa. Admit it."

She does no such thing.

By the end of their latest practice, Cordelia is singing praises, and Severa has to abruptly turn away while shoving the empty sidearm towards her so her mother couldn't see the stupid smile on her face from all of the compliments. 

Cordelia empties the blanks from the gun and packs the gun away into a case lined with something that looks like feathery blue velvet. “We can work on the right one when you get your splint off of your hand tomorrow.” She pauses slightly when she finishes, looking like she has a question she's not sure about asking.

“What?” Severa prompts.

“Lucina helped you passed the soccer trials last week, didn't she?”

“Yeah...” Severa aced the trials even with a broken hand, which wasn't hard, considering that she was just dribbling around all those stupid cones. Even Noire manages to get on the team, as Kjelle discovers in time that while she's not the fastest running towards something, she's definitely the quickest at running away. And also at passing the ball rapidly to another teammate, as if she's trying to get it away from her. "I don't think I would have done as well without her." 

Cordelia nods. “She's helped quite a bit, but I notice that you and Lucina are still hanging out together. You seem to becoming quite close.”

She gives Severa a look that makes her sputter. “Yeah, cause we're friends. That's what friends do!”

Cordelia eyes her. She looks like she's about to say something else before changing her mind and dropping the subject.

Severa's relieved until they go to Dr. Roche's the next day, and the good doctor finally removes her hideous splint.

“Your hand has mended earlier than expected, and you will need to do some exercises to get your strength back since you haven't been using the muscles for a month. Otherwise, it seems that you've healed remarkably well." She taps a pen against her clipboard before firming the line of her mouth and pulling something from a nearby drawer. "However, your mother requested that I give you some necessary information, and to contact her when I was done. She had asked for about 10 minutes, but knowing how inadequate the school's education system is, I have allocated a couple of hours to thoroughly teach you on the subject.” 

School education system? What does that...

Oh, no.

Dr. Roche holds up a pamphlet with cartoonish figures holding hands across its front while the words, “SAFE SEX” are printed across the top in garish purple and green letters. “Now, your mother requested I give you a brief lesson on sex and how to navigate the various STIs and STDs that can come with it.” 

Severa bolts upwards. “No! It's okay! I'll be going now.” 

“No, you will be staying here, as your mother personally requested that I educate you on the wonders of sex and how to have it safely. Seeing as I find the sexual education woeful in many public schools, I shall undertake it upon myself to instruct you in all manners of safety.” Maribelle picks up a book from her side table that looks like it could fit two dictionaries inside. “Now, first, can you name me all of the parts of your intimate area?”

Severa spends the next two hours wishing she could die on command. Whenever she protests that the good doctor must be busy seeing her patients, Dr. Roche waves it off with a blithe reminder that her colleague has the appointments under control and that the sexual education of the youth is far more important an endeavour. Severa leaves the clinic with the sincere belief that it's possible to die of embarrassment.

Cordelia seems surprised when she brings her jeep up to the curb, and Severa nearly rips its door off when she tries to get in. "Well...that took longer than expected." 

"What were you thinking?" Severa snarls, hurling herself into her seat and banging the seat buckle against the holder when she straps herself in. "That was a waste of my life." 

"Not at all." Her mother pulls away from the curb. "Proper education is highly underrated in this country, and with Dr. Roche's extensive knowledge on the matter, I thought it would be a good time to build a solid foundation on safety that'll last you a life time. She did go a bit more overboard than I expected." 

"So, what? The first step is learning how to pass away from humiliation?" Severa crosses her arms across her chest. "Well, good job. It worked."

"Severa, it's important to know how to take care of yourself in many different areas and having the proper knowledge to do so. And in the event you do get in relationship or talk about one with a...friend like Lucina, it helps to know your options in the future." Cordelia's lips twitch. “Of course, because you and Lucina are just friends, I'm certain that none of that would be of any use soon.”

Severa could kill her mother.

\--

A week after she gets the splint off, her mother takes her down to their basement, which has all the furniture pushed to the sides of the room while a large wrestling mat covers the concrete floor. 

Severa raises an eyebrow at the room set-up. “Are you going to teach me how to suplex someone now?”

Cordelia picks up a jacket and a utensil of some sort, handing them to Severa who notices it's a fake blade. “I'm going to teach you how to defend yourself from knife attacks.” She begins binding the jacket into a bundle just below her wrist and takes her place at the front of the mat. She waits for Severa, who scoffs but imitates her mother by tying the material to her own arm.

Cordelia stands across the empty room from her, a jacket wrapped around one forearm while her other hand holds a plastic knife. She looks ridiculous. “Severa, I'm going to come at you, and you need to dodge my attacks, okay?”

Severa rolls her eyes. “Yeah, Mom. I got—”

Cordelia lunges forward and slashes at Severa's throat before the girl finishes her sentence. Severa skids back, yelping, while her mother follows up with another slash across her front, the tip of the plastic knife tracing an arc across Severa's stomach before Cordelia steps forward into a stab. Severa dodges the blade by twisting to the side while her mother grabs her by the shoulder and sweeps her ankle out from under her, sending Severa tumbling down into the mat before pointing the knife in her face.

Severa lies on her back, stunned. Her mother reaches out a hand to help her up, and Severa stares at it for a moment before she snarls and slaps it aside. “No fair! You didn't give me a chance to get ready!”

“I gave you a warning, which is more than you'll get from people you may fight,” Cordelia sighs when Severa gets up on her own. “Do you want to go again?”

“Yes!” Severa readies her own knife in front of her. “I'm going to go again until I'm the one that lands you on your back!” It's infuriating and awe-inspiring that her mother doesn't look ruffled at all from her exertion. 

Cordelia looks at her, and there's something unreadable in her eyes. She brings herself into a fighting stance. “You can try.” 

It takes three hours for Severa to even graze the edge of Cordelia's forearm with her knife, but her mother looks so proud of her that when they drive out and grab Severa's favourite milkshake from Donnie's. Severa has no idea what her mother is praising her for, as she only landed a one blow versus her mother's barrage that has the young student feeling the beginning of bruises across her legs and arms. Despite her complaining, Severa follows her mother's instructions and doesn't try to raise too many arguments. There's something her mother is deeply worried about if the tension in her shoulders and slight frown she carries around is any indication. 

Her mother sighs for a third time in ten minutes when Severa finally asks, “Fine. What's eating you?”

Cordelia frowns. “Is it that obvious?”

...really?

Her mother runs a hand through her hair, looking out the car window. “The reports from Valm are concerning, and yet, Chrom seems exhausted trying to answer all of the townpeople's worries that Ylissetol will be next. He doesn't look like he has the manpower to stop the Grimleal from hitting us if they want to.” Cordelia taps her fingers restlessly against her thigh. "And I don't know if we can defend the town if they do with the forces that we have."

Severa stashes the empty milkshake container in a crevice by the passenger side door. “Why don't you just take up the sheriff's offer if you're so worried about the Grimleal attacking? With that kind of authority, there's probably a lot you can do to defend against them.” 

Cordelia's lips thin into a straight line. “That's not who I am anymore, Severa.” 

Severa is confused. “So? What does it matter if it's not who you are when it's something you want to do? Like, I get it. You don't want to have people throw their lives away for you anymore, but the sheriff thinks that you'd be able to do something about helping the town and you clearly want to do more. ”

Her mother doesn't have an answer.

Soccer trials have ended, but Cordelia infringes on so much of Severa's time with Lucina due to her coaching their team practices that the frustrated girl has actually taken to studying with the soccer star in the library to get some time alone, which ends up showing in her schoolwork. In biology, Mrs. Clearwater hands back an marked exam to Severa, a rare smile on her face. “I daresay that your improvement is quite noticeable, Miss Faulker. A 14% increase in test results is an admirable feat. And your attendance has risen to 100% in the past month.”

Severa mutters something inaudible and jams her exam inside her notebook while the students around her stare at her in disbelief. While her grades weren't terrible before, no one really needs to know that she's gotten an A+ on her last test, because Lucina actually insists on studying when they're together, which is mildly horrifying.

Lucina gives her a sidelong smile before turning back to the board, and Severa huffs, peering out the window and pretending that that single look didn't cause her entire body to flush. She's worried about the distant gazes and frowns Lucina's been having on her face lately, as if trying to puzzle out a problem that doesn't have a solution, but between their studying, homework, and practices, it's been hard to find time to even sit down and talk with Cordelia's lessons also eating into her waking hours. Lucina constantly scrolls through her phone about the wake of the bombings in Valm that has the city on the verge of a lockdown, like she's delving for some tidbit of knowledge that'll resolve the dilemma in her head. She looks so tired.

Noire gives her a gentle grin from the front when she's not blushing at Inigo's winks at her. Severa's not sure what Lucina said to him, but the genuine interest in his eyes when he asks about Noire's artwork has the shy girl flustered and blushing like a bride on her wedding night. And true to her status as Noire's best friend, she has not let up teasing the other girl about it one bit.

The exhilarated high from passing the soccer trials and getting Inigo's attention lasts exactly three weeks when Cordelia approaches the team, pulling them away from the soccer field before they can even cross into it. Her expression is grim, apologetic. “Girls, I have some bad news to tell you.” 

By the look on Lucina's face, she already knows what Severa's mother has to say. "Valm cancelled its support in the tri-city soccer program."

Cordelia nods. "Unfortunately, they were the biggest contributors to the minor soccer league, and their withdrawal means that the entire system collapsed. I'm sorry, girls. I wished that there was something I could do." Cordelia seems to hear herself. She winces at her words.

There's a solid pause of disbelief before her meaning sinks in, and a round of protest erupts from the angry and surprised girls, Lucina being, surprisingly, the most furious. Her voice cuts into the din of frustrated dissent. “There must be something we can do! I won't let this decide what what the team does!”

Cordelia's taken back by Lucina's fervour. Severa is too, and she stares at the upset girl. She hadn't realized that Lucina had her heart set on the team. 

Cynthia chimes in. "Yeah! We can't just sit back and do nothing, Ms. Faulkner!" 

Severa's mother darts a glance at their goalie who gives her a solemn nod in assent. "We can't."

And behind everyone pushing to be heard stands Noire, who looks like all the hope in her life is gone. She slips away before Severa can stop her.

Lucina strides in front of Cordelia. Her mouth is set in a determined line. "People's dreams are riding on this. I can't accept this outcome."

Severa's mother looks at Lucina with something like sympathy and admiration. "This isn't something we can change. Your resolve is incredible, but you need to learn to pick your fights." When Lucina looks like she wants to continue arguing, Severa's mother dismisses the team and wraps a gentle arm around Lucina's shoulder. She pushes her own daughter towards the parking lot. “Severa, can you go grab me a headache tonic from Tharja's shop? I need to have a talk with Lucina. Please.”

Severa hesitates and tries to catch Lucina's eye, but the frustrated girl doesn't look at her because she's too busy disputing with Cordelia. With a painful twinge in her chest, Severa leaves, wondering if Lucina would notice. When she doesn't, a thought flits across Severa's mind that asks if Lucina needs her at all. 

She leaves without saying goodbye.


	13. Joyride - Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa confronts her own doubts about her abilities when she runs into Cervantes and has to break curfew to go to help a friend.

The inside of Tharja's shop smells like lavender and jasmine—calming scents that put Severa reluctantly at ease. Wood panelings paint a welcoming tawny colour on the store's walls while a well-placed window in the front bathes the inside of the store with sunshine. Herbs and plants that remind the redhead of her father's garden are situated on wooden pillars that reach up to her waist as beautiful bottles of crystal and glass line the store shelves in a vibrant demand of colour. It looks warm and inviting, unlike its owner who glares at Severa from behind the counter.

Noire's mother is a woman with looks a model would envy and a figure that scrambles Severa's thoughts every time she sees her. Her skin is pale and smooth; her hair is dark and looks like it has the texture of silk. The almond shape of her eyes gives her a sultry edge to her stare, and there's not a single line around her eyes or a strand of grey hair, as if she hasn't aged a day since her twenties. It's contrasted by the glare she gives Severa the moment she steps into Tharja's store as if she wishes she could blast her off the face of the earth with a bolt of lightning. 

When the young student approaches her, Tharja frowns deeply. “You.”

Severa slams a palmful of money on the counter. “Just get me my mother's usual.”

“So quick to the point? After all the trauma you gave my chickens?” Tharja glowers at her. “Chicken chaser.”

“I accidentally ran into them outside—”

“And punted one over the house.” 

Yarne chooses that moment to nervously pop his head into the shop, and both of them turn to him. He looks like an animal ready to bolt. “I-I'm here to pick up some stuff for my mom's sore shoulder!” He cringes when he sees two angry women staring at him. “I'll uh...come back later.” 

Tharja fishes out a bottle from under the counter, a container of blue glass and a silver pointed cap. “Make sure your mother massages her shoulder after she puts this on. Use it everyday for fourteen nights and then tell her to come back to me.”

Noire's mother sounds like a witch. Why can't she just say two weeks like everyone else?

“And here...” Tharja pulls out another container of light blue glass with the word “Invigorating Tonic” stamped across the front in black and yellow lettering. “...this is your parents' week potions for their...energy problem.”

From her tone and the way Yarne turns pale, Severa quickly decides that she does not want to know what Noire's mother means. He approaches the counter warily, quickly swapping money for the bottle before retreating back to the safety of the exit. He doesn't manage to get out before Thaja stops him.

“Who is that young man I heard has been giving my daughter attention?”

Yarne's eyes dart to Severa's. “Why don't you ask her? She's Noire's best friend.”

Tharja turns to her, and Severa crosses her arms in defiance. Before she left the parking lot, she had fired off several texts to Noire and a call, which have all gone unanswered. She also typed one for Lucina before erasing the message off of her screen. “You're not the best company for my daughter's health.” 

Severa scoffs, “As if you care.” She places her hands on her hips. “If you're such a good mother, why don't you ask her yourself?”

Tharja merely observes her, distinterested. “Your right one is weaker than your left.”

Severa glares. She shoves her hands into her pockets. “Stop watching me. It's creepy.” 

Yarne glances between the two of them. “I'm just going to go now.” He edges towards the door. “I don't need to get involved in this.”

Tharja turns to him. “What are you to my daughter?”

“W-what? I'm just a classmate. Severa's the one who helped Noire join the soc—”

Severa glares at him, and Yarne yelps, “I mean I heard from Laurent that there's supposed some shooting stars over our town tonight!”

Tharja stares blankly at him while Severa scoffs. Great cover-up, Yarne. 

The bar owner from next door waltzes in, hands in his pockets while whistling a jaunty tune. He has a brown headband on that clashes horribly with his orange hair. “Hey Tharja, didja hear about Robin? Got a massive migraine that she can't get rid of.” 

“Robin has a headache?” Tharja's on alert like a hunting dog who's heard a rustle in the bushes, straining at the sound like a hound hearing a distant note in time. She quickly packs jangling bottles of bright colours into her bag and darts out the door, having forgotten that she had other customers. 

Severa exchanges awkward glances with Yarne. “So, do we lock up or what?”

The barkeep shakes his head, pulling out a silver key from his pocket. “I got it.” He ushers all of them out, making sure to turn off the lights before locking up Tharja's shop. He turns around to their stares and shrugs. "This was easier than watching her place for her until she came back. She's always running out, and I lock it up for her. Even helped decorated the place. You should have seen it before." He jerks his thumb towards the herbal medicine shop. 

Severa eyes the humming man. “How did you hear that the principal has a headache?”

“I hear a lot of things through the grapevine. Comes with owning a bar.” He shrugs. “And one of the things I hear a lot is that you don't get along with my daughter, which I don't get because you two used to be good friends.”

Severa drops her gaze and steps away. “That was a long time ago.” 

Gaius turns to her. He studies Severa for while before shaking his head and smiling. “I don't know what happened to you two, but it's rarely too late to make up with someone. I know you and my little girl don't get along anymore, but give each other a shot, yeah?” He pats down his pockets and turns an apologetic look towards her. "No honey cakes on me this time, though I suppose you're too big for them now, eh?"

Severa grumbles and ducks his pat on her head. 

Gaius has always been kind to her. When other adults avoided her after Owain's death, he always greeted her when he passed by and gave her the special honey cakes his wife bakes for him. He sometimes pretended that he didn't notice her crying when she was alone too. How could a Cynthia have a dad so cool and yet turn out so lame?

He begins to amble down the street, and Severa and Yarne follow him to the bar next door before realizing they had their own plans for the day. When the bar owner reaches his place, he turns and waves lazily at them. “Shoo, you minors aren't supposed to be here.”

Yarne takes his dismissal as a chance to flee while Severa begins to leave but stops when her attention catches on someone emerging from the bar. 

A man with short, wild dark hair and a stoic visage emerges from the doorway into the parking lot. The first thing Severa notices is that he's built lean but powerfully with broad shoulders and eyes as sharp as hawk's. His gaze flicks over her and Gaius before he turns away from them and begins lifting the crates into his arms. He completely ignores them.

Gaius jerks his thumb back at the silent man behind him. “This talkative fellow is Lon'qu. He's my new bartender for the weeknights.” He frowns when the silent man gestures for him to return to the venue. “Looks like there's some trouble going down I gotta take care of. See you later, kid.” He tries to pat her head again, and she swats his hand away.

He disappears into the bar while the barkeep studies her, his gaze unreadable. He shakes his head and goes back to his work while Severa turns around, taking one step away from the bar's parking lot before she stops.

Captain Cervantes pass by in front of her with a deputy trailing behind him.

Her breath comes out in harsh stabs, and something hazy robs her of her senses. She stalks up to the familiar officer, who glances back, looking unimpressed but pulling the manila package he's holding slightly closer to him. “You. You're that man I spoke with all those years ago.” 

Cervantes looks down at her without a flicker of recognition in his eyes. “Do I know you?”

“You worked on a report regarding the death of Owain William eight years. I was the first person you interviewed.”

He pauses and takes another look at her. Steel comes into his eyes. “I don't recall.” 

"You wouldn't with the amount of convenient forgetting you did on your report." She lowers her voice to a growl. "Or did you forge too many to remember?"

Cervantes gives her a cold look while the officer behind him studies her. She ignores him. "What fanciful accusations from a girl with a sordid reputation. I hadn't realized that lying was also one of your behavioural traits as well."

Severa nearly roars at him. She yanks the manila envelope from his hands, and she's satisfied to find alarm in his eyes. “Seems like this is something important.” 

He scoffs, “Listen to a veteran, girl. Pick a fight you can win.” He snatches the package from Severa's hands and lumbers towards his car parked a little ways down the street, which is polished almost to a fault. He slips into the police vehicle and speeds away while Severa seethes, her hands balling into fists so tight, her knuckles have gone white. 

She turns to the deputy he left behind, and she can't place his name. She's seen him before, and he's relatively uninteresting to her—short, brown hair; light blue eyes; the face of a man utterly forgettable. He smiles at her, showing a mouthful of teeth that look long and thin. “You're very pretty.” 

“Great observation, detective.” Severa tosses a twin tail over one shoulder, though she feels the hair rising on the nape of her neck. She doesn't take her eyes off of him nor turn her back to him. “Are you going to tell me that the leaves are turning brown too?”

He observes her. “You're quite a rude girl, aren't you? I wonder how your mother isn't ashamed of you.” 

His words lance through her, and she snarls. “As if you know my mother. She probably don't recognize you from a stain on the bottom of her shoe.” 

The man sneers, and something cold jolts into Severa's bones, like she's breathing ice instead of air. “What would you know? You're just a shadow of your mother. She's a war hero, and you're just a brat who brings bad luck to everyone she meets.” The officer smiles. There's no kindness in his eyes. “And honestly, who would care if you disappeared like that boy Owain?” 

He approaches, bunching his shoulders forward as if ready to pounce when he stops abruptly. He stares warily at a point somewhere over Severa's shoulder, and she looks back to see that new bar employee not too far behind her, glowering at the deputy. Lon'qu moves to stand in front of her protectively. “You're not welcome here.”

The deputy sneers, “This is my town, foreigner.” 

“As far as I was aware, this was the sheriff's town, not a lackey's who has to threaten a girl half of his size to feel like a man.”

The officer eyes glint. He reaches for his gun, but Lon'qu is faster. The bartender snatches the man's wrist away from his holster and twists it into an unnatural angle that has the deputy dropping to his knees. 

Lon'qu's voice comes out in a deep rasp. “Yield.” 

The struggling man hisses. He tries to yank his hand away, but there's a sound like a tiny snap from his wrist and the deputy yelps, sagging like he's lost all the spine in his back. Lon'qu lets go with a look of disgust on his face while the officer stumbles back onto his feet, his wrist held at an odd angle. He glares at the bartender but backs away with his gaze still on the silent man. When he looks at Severa, his face twists with an animalistic fury like it was her fault that this happened to him.

The officer slams his patrol car door and takes off like he's bolting from the scene. Lon'qu watches until the tail end of the car becomes a speck in the distance before he turns to her, grunting. “You always get into this much trouble?”

“I could have handled myself.” Severa flips a twin tail over one shoulder. Her movement is shaky. She huffs and crosses her arms, steeling herself as she whirls towards him aggressively. “Where would someone like you learn to move so quickly?”

“Years of training.” Lon'qu turns his back to her and makes his way back to the parking lot of the bar. He looks at her uneasily when she follows him. “Stay back.”

“Can you teach me to do that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have other things to do.”

“Like what? Lift kegs?” Severa scoffs.

“Some of us have jobs. Go away, and let me do mine.” He picks up the final crateful of bottles filled with dubious liquor and makes his way back into the bar, slamming the door behind him with his foot. 

Severa stares at the door, half-tempted to storm in and demand for him to teach her what he knows. Her phone vibrates in her pocket, and when she glances at the screen, she sees her mother's name lighting up the glass surface. It's the last thing she wants to see. She swears and makes her way back to her car while texting Noire again. Noire doesn't respond, and Severa worries.

When she gets home, her mother takes the tonic from her gratefully, massaging the inside of the bridge of her nose with a groan while lamenting Lucina's obstinacy. Severa brushes past her mother and doesn't even look at her when she goes upstairs. She enters her room and hurls her bag into a corner of the room before throwing herself onto her bed, her phone out and fingers flying across her keyboard. She hesitates as she finishes the text, her thumb hovering over the “Send” button before her eyes flick up to Lucina's name at the top of her screen. She deletes the message before pushing her phone away onto the far side of the bed. She doesn't know how many minutes pass her phone rings, and Severa almost lets the rings run out before she picks it up. 

“Hello?” Severa's startled by the sound of harsh sobbing into the phone before she recognizes that it's Noire, and she sits up. “Where are you? Are you okay?”

“Severa, I can't—I can't be alone. I'm afraid. My mom—” Noire's choking out her words. She lets out a soft cry. “Please come for me.”

Noire hangs up abruptly, and Severa's on her feet and out her bedroom door, grabbing her bag as she passes. She's halfway down her corridor when she remembers that she's grounded, and Cordelia is still in the house. She skulks around the landing, keeping watch for her mother. Severa manages to get the door open and is halfway out when her mother's voice rings from the second floor at the top of the stairs that faces the front door.

“What's so important that you need to break your punishment and curfew for it?”

Her mother descends the stairs, looking flawless, graceful, but the deep lines around her eyes belie her worry. 

Severa awkwardly stands at the entrance to the front door with her phone in her hand. “I need to go to Noire's.” It sounds lame to her, and she wouldn't blame her mother for extending her punishment for another six months because of how much it looks like she's trying to escape. "She needs help."

Cordelia goes quiet. "Is she upset about the cancellation of the soccer team?"

"I don't know." 

Her mother sweeps down in front of her. "And you think this is important enough that you're willing to break a police-imposed curfew to prevent possible kidnappings by the Grimleal roaming around out there? Enough to risk disobeying me?"

"Yes." The younger redhead inhales sharply. She doesn't back down from her mother's stare, like she could read the words of Severa's soul at the back of her skull. "Whatever Noire's going through right now with her mom—" She spots her mother's eyes narrowing at the words, "—she can't do it alone. She needs a friend. She needs me." 

Severa takes a breath and steels herself for a verbal battle like she's never seen before when Cordelia studies her for a long moment before nodding in assent. “If you think that it's that important, I agree that you should go.”

...what? 

What!

“Wait, aren't you supposed to stop me?”

“Severa, of all people, I know how little time it takes to lose someone you consider a friend,” Cordelia says, softly. “If Noire's in trouble, you need to go to her when she has nowhere else to go.” 

The young redhead splutters, "But this is stupid! It's dangerous! I thought..."

“I'm not raising you as a child nor a soldier to obey everything I say without question. I'm raising you as an adult who happens to be a child at the time.” Cordelia gathers Severa's hands in her own, and Severa's reminded of a time not too long ago when her mother's hands dwarfed her own. “It does you no good to try and teach you how to be a good kid when I'm trying to teach you to be a good adult. If you are going to make this choice, you may be caught by the police. As far as kidnapping goes...it seems unlikely, but there is still that risk. But if you don't go, you may lose a friend, and based on what I've heard from Tharja, it can be bad to leave Noire alone in a state where she's so mentally fragile.” 

Severa can't get over the fact that her mother isn't blocking her way out. "But you're supposed to say no!"

Cordelia smiles, wryly. “If I forbid you from going, would you have listened?” When Severa shakes her head after a moment of hesitation, she continues on. “I can hardly blame you when I would have done the same thing in your position. If I were you, I would have already gone over the moment I knew a friend was in trouble.” Severa inhales sharply at her mother's words, and Cordelia continues on blithely. "When I wasn't much older than you, I had already fought several a dozen battles with my comrades' lives resting on what I could do to cover them, and I fought through darkness when I couldn't distinguish friend from enemy. And every pull of that trigger sent a doubt shooting through me, because I feared, for a moment, that I had aimed at the wrong target, that I—"

Severa erupts. “It's always about you, isn't it! You, you, you—it's never about me by myself, but me in comparison to you! I'm sick of it! If I'm expected to be you, where can I be me? When can I be myself if all anyone sees when they look at me is some defective version of you?” Her voice breaks, and she hates herself. She mutters. "I'm just a shadow of you after all, aren't I?"

Surprise bursts onto her mother's face, followed by confusion. Something lights up in her mother's eyes, and her expression softens. She gives Severa the worst emotion she could have shown her: pity.

Severa mutters and turns away. “Whatever. I'm out of here.” She feels her mother grab her wrist, and she tries to rip her arm away. Cordelia is much stronger than she gives her credit for. “What?”

“I never asked you to be me.” When Severa is silent, Cordelia continues. “I never want you to be me, and one of the worst decisions you can make in your life to live under the standards of someone else.” She leans forward and rests her forehead against her daughter's, and Severa wants to cry. “Severa, I see so much in you that I don't think you see yourself. You have such a big heart, you're so loyal and devoted, and you're much better with your words than you give yourself credit for. You have a honesty to you that's comforting, and sometimes all we can do to help someone is to be brave and be honest." Severa tries to pull away. Cordelia doesn't let her. “You are my daughter, but you're your own person too. I believe that you have the capacity to surpass me in every single way if you give yourself a chance to do so, not as my child but as the incredible girl you are and the incredible woman you're going to be.” She drops her voice. "And I know Lucina sees that in you too." She lets go at last, though Severa's still trembling. "Please don't ever try to be me. That's all I ask of you."

"But everyone expects me to be you." Severa's voice is weak, and she's almost ashamed of herself for saying that. She glances at her mother's face and is taken back by the look in Cordelia's eyes. She almost looks like she understands. "I need to go."

“Wait. Before you go...” Cordelia reaches into the bag beside her and holds out her former service piece towards her daughter. “Take this with you. I won't let you go out without some means to protect yourself.”

“H-hey, isn't it illegal for me to carry one around without a license?”

Cordelia levels her gaze at Severa. “Is legality really going to stop people who break it to hurt others? The law only works if both parties agree to abide by it.”

Point taken.

Severa hesitates. She takes her mother's gun and slips it into her bag, feeling the weight of it on her shoulder. “But what if I have to use it?”

Cordelia kisses her forehead. “Have faith in yourself, Severa. I do. Sometimes, we need to do what we must to protect the ones we care about, even if we disagree with what we have to do.” Cordelia's eyes widen when she speaks her words as if realizing something clearly that has been bothering her for a while. She looks off somewhere with a pensive expression on her face. 

Severa can't help but question the wisdom of giving a teenager a loaded weapon, but there's something in her mother's gaze that makes the younger redhead stand up straighter, her head lifting up of its own accord. She leaves, hopping into her car and taking off towards the edge of town. She traces a familiar route while her brain burns with thoughts like a storm of birds smashing into each other. A strange electricity tingles throughout her body, a feeling like she's walking on clouds, that she's imbued with something more powerful than just herself. Her hands lead the car, and, soon, she finds herself on the edge of town, passing into the forest that only lets the slimmest of moonlight through its thick canopy. 

Severa stops on the path near the lonely dwelling when Noire flies out of it, tears tracking down her cheeks. She stops a few steps from Severa's car, and the pair stare at each other until Severa jerks her head slightly to signal to her friend to get in and Noire shakily climbs into the passenger side seat. The car turns in its track, and not once does Severa see Tharja come out to see if her daughter is okay. 

They take off wildly towards the mountain, taking a path that Severa bases on memory more than sight while Noire wipes at her eyes beside her. She drives recklessly around the mountain road, her car swerving so sharply on its curves that a few more inches over would have the convertible flying down towards the town below. Noire laughs as they jerk around bends that could leave a seasoned driver queasy, the sound pitching from a gibbering cackle to a low, sonorous sob and back again. Other than the moonlight lighting up patches of the road, everything is as dark as if Severa has closed her eyes, and it's only through muscle memory of a path she's driven countless times that they even make it pass the ridge into a flat level. The town below them resembles little more than a chasm with the mountains surrounding it on three sides, a scattering of golden glows lighting up the fathomless darkness, and the whispers from the deputy's words come back to haunt her in the absence of light.

For a brief moment, Severa wonders that if she plunges over into the abyss below them, would anyone cares if she's gone?

Noire shoves her steering wheel to the left when one of the car's tires edges to close to the drop. Severa jolts and dives forward to stop the nose of her convertible from banging against the cliff face on their other side. The car jitter across the road for a few seconds before straightening out, and Severa has control again. They're both breathing hard, and neither say anything to each other until they nearly reach the top of the road.

Noire peers out the window into the inky darkness. “How do you know where you're going?”

“I could drive down here with one eye closed.” To be honest, she probably has at one point.

They take a turn off of the main route onto a narrow path that cuts through the mountain, passing by a road that leads through Lovers' Break and stopping into an area that ends in a copse of trees and a dead end. The girls get out of the car, their breaths coming out in white plumes in the mountain air, wisps that last only a second in the dark of the night. They march forward through the trees at the far side of the dead end, climbing over a dead tree lying on its side as they push themselves over frozen bark. They stride through the trees, hearing only the clicking of bugs and little else until they reach a flat piece of land that juts out from the mountain, covered in grass that nearly reach up to their knees with a large boulder near the edge of the ridge, like a sentinel watching over the distant town below.

The mountain air makes Severa's head light as if there's too much of it. Her skin tingles from the chill from being so high up, and she follows Noire who makes her way into the clearing. Without speaking, they lie down on the wild grass and look into the stars above them, their glows dotting the sky like a dark blanket sprinkled with golden dust. 

They lie in silence until Severa breaks it first. “What are we doing here?”

“I don't know.” Noire's voice comes out softly. “Why are we here at all?”

The conversation is getting too existential for Severa's tastes. She turns towards her friend, pretending not to see the wet sheen in Noire's eyes. "What happened with your mom?"

"I was crying because the soccer team was disbanded, and she didn't know that I joined. She came home and wondered what set me off." Noire pauses, long stretches of silence that set uneasiness in Severa's stomach. "When she asked me why that matter, I told her I wanted to leave Ylissetol one day. She..." Noire finally meets her eyes. "She was terrified, Severa. She was stunned. T-this fear just took over her face, her body, and it was like something alive came into her eyes. She forbid me from ever leaving the town, and I...I fought with her, saying that I didn't want to stay somewhere I didn't belong for the rest of my life. But she still told me that I can never leave. Not without her permission. Not without her." It's hard to hear Noire's last words, because they crumble into sobs.

Severa moves to wrap an arm around her friend, and Noire leans into her shoulder, clinging so tightly onto her that it's as if she was going to drown in the sea of her grief if she let go. "Your mother can't stop you when you're an adult." 

Noire shakes her head and presses her face deeper into Severa's shoulder. "It's not about that." Severa's about to ask what it is about then when Noire pulls away. She whispers, "I'll die here." 

“Don't be ridiculous! You'll get your chance to leave. I'll make sure of that.”

“How?”

“I'll think of something. I promise, Noire. If you want to leave, I'll help you.”

Noire smiles. It doesn't reach her eyes. "Maybe I'm just not the kind of person who's supposed to reach her dreams."

"Your dreams of going to Ishtar?"

"Of finding a place out there where I feel like I'm home, where I feel like someone wants me here." Noire stares at the sky above them. She looks so sad. "Do you think it's even out there?"

Severa's throat constricts like someone's got a fierce grip on it. She has trouble speaking. "Yes." She wants to say that it's here with her, but she knows it's the wrong thing to say to Noire right now. "What do you mean a place where you feel like you're home?"

“My mother doesn't love me. Sometimes, I get the feeling that she wishes I wasn't there.” Noire's voice comes out like a wisp, a fleeting flicker of sound that quickly dies away. “You're so lucky, Severa. You have a mom who cares if something happens to you.”

Severa winces. “Yeah, but that doesn't mean she always thinks about how I feel standing in her shadow.” She amends herself. "Before, anyway." 

Noire doesn't say anything, and Severa doesn't expect her to. They stare up at the scattershot of stars, colossal giants that dot the sky in tiny specks of light, so far away that the girls would never reach them in their lifetime if they tried. Severa thinks of her mother and feels so insignificant. She wonders if she'll ever do something to earn the pride in her mother's eyes when she looks at her.

“Some days, I want to go and leave. Vanish, if only not to exist for a moment.” Noire stares up at the stars, something wet gleaming in her eyes. “I wonder if I matter to anyone, if anyone would care if I disappeared.”

Severa bolts up into a sitting position. “Don't be daft! Of course, you matter. You're smart, you're insanely pretty, and you've got so much artistic talent, you put everyone in town to shame!”

“Do you even need me anymore when you've got Lucina?”

Severa ducks her head and takes a breath. She recalls her mother's words. “You do matter. To me. I don't know what I'd do without you, because you've always been my rock. Lucina won't replace you. She never will. You've been my friend when no one else would be, and you've always been there for me, even when I didn't deserve it." A long stretch of silence, and uncertainty settles in Severa's gut. But she has to try anyway. "I hope that's enough for you to want to stay.” 

In the darkness, Noire's eyes shine, and she doesn't say anything. She doesn't need to.

Something in the sky catches Severa's eyes, and she glances up as a shower of light bursts out above them, streams of light flitting by in quick darts like tadpoles in a river. She remembers Yarne's words from the shop. "I heard from someone that there would be shooting stars tonight over the town. Maybe if we make wishes, they would come true." 

Noire whispers, “I wish my mother would care about me.”

Severa watches the stars above them and wishes that Tharja would too. 

The shooting stars fade away into the night, and the girls pick themselves off of the grass, shivering as the wind bites at their skin. Noire leads them back to the car, and Severa drives her back to her house, going much more slowly and carefully on the way down than on their ascent. When Severa drops Noire off at her house, they step out of the car together and stare up at the darkened building, a single light illuminating the single white step at Noire's doorway. Severa doesn't know what to make of that, but she decides it doesn't matter and turns her attention back to her friend.

Noire shuffles her feet. "I was thinking of running away and never coming back. And when we were on that ridge, I thought about jumping, because I thought that no one would care if I disappeared." The taller girl reaches out and crushes the startled redhead into a hug. “I'm so happy to be wrong. Thank you for being my friend,” Noire whispers.

Severa returns it, nonplussed. “You weirdo, I like being your friend. If anything, you're the odd one by being mine.” 

Noire shakes her head but holds a small smile on her face. “We're both strange then, but we can be strange together.” She squeezes Severa's hand, glancing at the connection between them. “We're not normal people, are we?”

Severa shrugs. “Someday, we'll get it right.”

Noire lets out a soft laugh and a shy, beautiful smile. She hugs Severa again. “Call me when you get home, so I know you got there safe, okay?” She nudges her friend. “And call Lucina too.” 

Severa hesitates. She meets Noire's gentle gaze and relaxes, her words coming out in a low confession. “I don't know if our relationship is going to work. I don't think she even needs me.” She knows she said something wrong when Noire gives her a look like Severa's an idiot. Noire. “What?”

Noire shakes her head. “Just go talk to your girlfriend when you get home, okay?” 

She pushes Severa to her car, despite the latter's protests of her relationship status. The young driver returns home only to find the house dark with the lights out. On the kitchen table is a note left by Cordelia that states that she left to speak with Chrom.


	14. The Girl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina says goodbye to her favourite teacher, and feels the distance in her relationship with Severa grow. She doesn't know how to resolve it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a certain dance scene, the music I hear in my head when I write it is from a beautiful piano cover of Hellberg's The Girl. You could find it here if you're curious what it sounds like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdhbkXEcNHs. The section in particular is 2:13-3:38.
> 
> By the way, all my chapter titles are song names if anyone is curious about what inspires each section.

Ms. Faulkner has been Lucina's favourite teacher since the young student entered high school. It's not because of her passion for beautiful phrases and ideas or the way she treats everyone as if she believes they're so capable of achieving more than they currently are. 

It's her work ethic. It's how she stay behind three hours every day to ensure that any students who needs help can get it, and Lucina has been to her many times when she's been stumped with an assignment or reading she couldn't understand, walking into Ms. Faulkner's classroom with hesitation while the English teacher greets her with the pretty smile her daughter inherited. It's the rare moments when Ms. Faulkner shares the poems she writes herself. Every student leans forward from their desk, caught on her words as she sings of spite as sharp as broken glass or of grief as love unspent with nowhere to go. She has a talent for wielding words in different tones from a lyrical prose of a bard from ancient times to the commanding force of a general on a battlefield that most people in town would be hard-pressed to match, and a love for her students that's reflected in the time she spends at school when most teachers have long gone home. 

It's a little heartbreaking for Lucina when Cordelia Faulkner suddenly resigns from her position at Shepherd High.

Mrs. Clearwater takes over some of the English classes as Lucina's mother scrambles to find a permanent replacement. The science teacher sniffs with disdain at a copy of _The Radiant Hero_ on her desk, grimacing as she reads over some of the lines as if wondering why one would bother using metaphors when they could be direct and concise with their meaning instead. The class spends the next week relearning the basic aspects of grammar, which nearly kills Cynthia and has Lucina sorely missing Ms. Faulkner. Most of the students' longing for their former teacher slips into shock when they find out she's been accepted into the local police department as the assistant sheriff. Save for Lucina and Severa, her radical career change is all the students and teachers can talk about. 

Severa seems the least surprised out of everyone that her mother resigned from teaching and accepted the sheriff's offer. “I had more time to get used to the idea.” She shrugs. “It's not that interesting, anyway.” Her pen scribbles across her notepad before stopping as Severa frowns at the police officer patrolling outside the library window. She doesn't say a word, and it bothers Lucina how quiet she's been. 

Lucina nudges her. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, just thinking.” She shifts away from Lucina, and the other girl can't pretend that the gesture doesn't sting. “Is the soccer team still on your mind?”

“No.” Lucina glances over her notes for math. She flips through them before sighing. “There's not much we can do now that the coach has left.” 

“You're still bothered by it.” 

Lucina glances at her hands. “I feel like I let the team down.”

“...how? It's not like you were the one who bombed Valm.”

“No, but perhaps, had I had the foresight to heed the signs that something was happening—” She stops when Severa sighs and turns to her, cradling a startled Lucina's cheeks in her palms. Lucina's breath stutters, and her stomach flips.

“You are way too responsible for your own good. It's not your fault what happened to Valm, or what happened to the team last year.”

“But had I not—”

“You were lucky to leave the hospital without permanent brain damage. There wasn't more you could do.” Severa's gaze roams over Lucina's face—her eyes, her jawline, her lips. She lets go, and Lucina is disappointed. A steady ache in the pit of her stomach begins to open. “You can't keep going around like it's your job to save the world.” 

“And you? You've been so—” Distant. “—silent lately that I'm concerned. What's happening with you, Severa?”

The redhead hesitates, something flickering in her eyes and her mouth moves. She shakes her head and moves further away. The movement might as well have been a knife buried in Lucina's belly. “Nothing you should worry about."

They don't say anything to each other for the rest of lunch.

A week after Ms. Faulkner resigns, a new teacher is appointed. He's...interesting.

Mr. Rolland tosses his long hair back and waves to Gerome near the windows, who ducks and looks like he wishes he could wear something to cover his face. “Son, would you like to keep your papa company during his first week of classes? Unless you are busy making friends with some wonderful young ladies.” He winks at Lucina, and the uncomfortable student shifts. 

Cynthia glances at her friend and raises her hand. “Umm...we were studying a poem by Priam when Ms. Faulkner left.”

“Ah, _The Radiant Hero_ is a fine example of heroism triumphing over evil, but I would prefer to start anew with a new text. I've prepared you all a copy of _The Battle of Belhalla_ , which we will be studying from now.” He glances down a sheet on his desk. “I apologize that I may have to resort to the attendance sheet, as I have not learned all your names yet. Miss Flynn, if you could start the reading of the poem.” 

Lucina starts but gets up with her copy in her hand. “I hereby sentence you for your treason. No visits to our kingdom, no cries left. You are a traitor, dear friend, and the king's answer is death.” She pauses after reading the first line. She feels uneasy. “I suspect that this story does not end happily.”

“Ah, bien. You would be correct. _The Battle of Belhalla_ is a tragedy, one of the finest written by the wandering dancer, Sylvia, who was also suspected to be a survivor. She liked to write stories where either all the important or main characters die, or ones where two lovers are broken apart by death, and this—an epic tale of separation and betrayal—is one of my favourites to this day.” 

Cynthia shifts in her seat. “That sounds really depressing. Why would anyone want to read it?”

Mr. Rolland changes his tone, the lines of his eyes more serious. “Because there's often beauty in sadness, especially if it's a reflection of real life. Not everything ends well all the time.” 

A knock is heard at the entrance, and the class turns to see Ms. Faulkner leaning into the classroom, a fond smile on her face. “Hello, have you all been behaving for your new teacher?”

The class answers in an incomprehensible resounding answer, and Mr. Rolland greets her, an easy smile on his face. “Good madam, have you come to take your old job back?”

Ms. Faulkner shakes her head. “Not at all. I came by merely to visit and to clean out my office for you.” She clears her throat. “I could use some help to clear things out. I was wondering if Lucina would be able to give me a hand.” 

Mr. Rolland turns to the surprised girl with a raised eyebrow. “It seems you are wanted by this lovely woman, young miss. I give you permission to grant her desires.”

Lucina shares an awkward glance with Cynthia and gets up, packing away her things. She slips out of the classroom and walks alongside her former teacher, who has shown up in her new uniform and an empty box that she carries on her hip. “How has working with my father been so far?”

“Honestly? It feels like not much has changed between us since the last time we did.” Cordelia's eyebrows furrow together. “Although I can't say I wished the same for the police department.” 

“What do you mean?”

“Just that some things may need to change in the future.” Cordelia gives her sidelong glance. She changes the subject. “So, how have you enjoyed classes with Mr. Rolland? It's lucky that your mother was able to find a replacement at the last minute.”

"He's...not you." 

Ms. Faulkner shakes her head. "He was never meant to be."

Lucina and her former coach chat about the various eccentricities of the new teacher as they made their way to the office at the front of the school. Lucina waves to her mother as they pass her office, and Cordelia stops to have a chat with Robin for a few minutes, the two women exchanging warm smiles and grasping each other's hands. Robin wishes her good luck in her next venture, and Ms. Faulkner continues on her way to the corner office that looks out into the forest bordering the school. She pulls out a bronze key and slips it into the lock, pushing open the white-painted door and into her old office. 

A pine desk sits in front of the windows while an old leather chair hides behind it, the creases in the material indicating that it's been worn and well-loved. A bookshelf holding novels and plays fills two shelves with Lucina recognizing some of the titles from her studies. A sculpture sits on the desk that Lucina quickly realizes is a life-like replica of Severa, which runs a jolt through her bones. But most of all that is surprising are the letters upon letters that are pinned against the walls, covering the corner office in a mosaic of colourful sheets. When Lucina inspects them closely, she realizes that they're all from graduated students who have written back to their former English teacher.

Ms. Faulkner steps forward and places the box she's carrying on the desk. "I told Robin to start cleaning out my things. It looks like she didn't touch anything."

"Maybe she didn't want to." 

Cordelia shakes her head and begins to carefully removed the letters from the wall. "Would you mind sweeping the books into the box I've brought?"

Lucina obliges, and they work in easy chatter, an odd sadness building in Lucina's chest like a a boulder pressing against the inside of her ribs. She supposes it's only natural that she would feel sorrow when she's helping to wipe out evidence that her teacher had ever been here.

"I will miss this school, and I will miss teaching everyone, especially you, Lucina." Cordelia pauses as she arranges her old teaching materials in the box, shifting old notepads with curriculum plans aside. "May I ask you a personal question?"

"Yes?" 

“Are you dating my daughter?”

Lucina nearly drops a heavy stack of books on her foot. “Er...I..." Her face is on fire. It's a dead giveaway. "What makes you say that?”

“Well, the way you look at her is an obvious clue, and the way you seem so fond of touching her.” Ms. Faulkner straightens up and gazes at the nervous student. “And the fact that I rarely see her out of your company these last couple of weeks at school.”

Cordelia can be very frightening to look at when Lucina has to tilt her head upwards to meet her gaze. She's in her assistant sheriff uniform, her shirt tucked neatly into her pants, black tie accented by a single clip while her badge sits just atop her breast pocket, resplendent and commanding with its golden inlay work in the shape of a star with six points. She's intimidating with the way she towers over the young student, her gaze critical and scrutinizing. It doesn't help that her gun is visible on her belt, still in its holster. 

“Are you—” Lucina swallows, “—are you going to forbid her from seeing me?”

Cordelia arches an eyebrow. “You have one of the highest grades in school, nearly perfect attendance in every sports practice and meet I've ever supervised, and your behaviour towards others is exemplary. I've never seen you treat anyone with less than kindness and compassion. Since you started dating her, Severa's grades and attendance have gone up, she's much less defensive, and she's growing into the woman I know she can be. You've been nothing but a positive influence on her. At this point, if you wanted to marry her, I wouldn't object.”

Lucina staggers under the weight of Cordelia's praise. “I'm flattered that you think so highly of me.”

“That's because you've earned it.” Her former teacher hefts a cardboard box onto her old desk and cautiously fits in the letters from previous students between textbooks. “Why don't you come over and have dinner with us? You can get to know our family better.” 

Lucina's jaw drops. She splutters. "You're taking this so well!"

"Were you expecting me to react badly?"

"No, but..." The young girl hesitates. “Aren't you worried about me breaking her heart or something?”

“Honestly, I would be more concerned about her breaking yours.” She pinches the bridge of her nose as if she has a headache before sighing. “I would caution to be careful. Both of you,” Cordelia says. “Love doesn't mean the same for everyone.”

Lucina takes a moment to consider that. It's the saddest thing she's ever heard.

“You don't have to say yes right away. Think about it. The offer's always there.” Cordelia smiles, and Lucina's heart rattles against her ribs at how similar she looks to Severa when she does. She picks up the sculpture from her desk, which is a bust of her daughter's head and shoulders. “Her father made this of her last year, but Severa claims that he made it better looking than the original and she didn't want it in the house.”

Lucina takes a look at the sculpture. It's a beautiful piece with smooth skin, large pensive eyes, and hair that look as fine as strands of silk. It's an exact replica of Severa's features. “What does she mean?”

“I'm not sure myself. I—” She stumbles against her desk as she moves, and her hip catches on the edge of a box. The piece slips out of Cordelia's hand and bangs against the corner of the desk, the pretty tinkling of something breaking sends Lucina's heartbeat to her throat. The soccer player drops to the floor and catches the ceramic sculpture in time, but she can't stop a part of it from splintering. 

Lucina's breath stops when she stands up and examines the weight in her hand. There's a slight chip in the figure's left eyebrow, a clip like a small arrowhead into the otherwise smooth groove of Severa's brow, but it looks undamaged otherwise. For some reason, Lucina likes it more with the slight imperfection in the otherwise flawless visage. “I think It looks better this way.” 

“Thank you.” Cordelia takes the piece, looking both relieved and sad. She smiles at the figure. “This was my fault, but I will love it anyway.”

Lucina helps the former teacher pack up the last of the things into the box, and the office she leaves behind looks bare and lonely as if she was never there.

Cordelia halts the young student before they cross the threshold back into the school. She tears off a piece of paper and writes something on it. “If I was still your teacher, this would be very improper.” She hands Lucina her phone number. “But as Severa's mother and the assistant sheriff, if you ever take up my offer or need help, please call me.” 

Lucina takes the paper and stops Cordelia from leaving with a hand on her elbow. “I...if it's not too forward, may I get a hug before you leave?”

The former teacher blinks before smiling and putting down the box in her arm. She pulls the student towards her, and Lucina has the sudden thought that this woman might be her mother-in-law one day. The idea fills the young girl with an odd sense of happiness. “Take care, Lucina. I will see you around.”

Ms. Faulkner takes her items and strides down the hallway, and out of the school. Lucina returns to class, missing her all the while.

\--

When Lucina gets home, she finds her mother hunched over the island in their kitchen, hands to her forehead. “Mom? What's wrong?”

Robin closes her eyes, pressing her fingers to her face. She groans, “I don't understand where these migraines come from. They seem to be getting worse lately.”

Lucina touches her mother's arm. “Have you seen Aunt Lissa?”

“No, I didn't think I would need to.” Robin winces. “I may have to drop by the hospital tonight.”

Lucina frowns and gets her mother a glass of water. “I think you should go now. They haven't been getting better.”

Robin rubs at the bridge of her nose, at the edge just before her eyes. “I used to take a walk along the river, but they seem to get worse when I do. Only Tharja's potions seem to help but only temporarily.” She opens her eyes and grimaces as if the sunlight is stabbing into her eyes. “I will go see your Aunt Lissa, I promise.”

After wringing another vow from her mother, Lucina heads upstairs and calls Cynthia to invite her over. Morgan, for some reason, decides to join them.

Cynthia throws herself onto Lucina's bed. “Finally! With all the time you spend with Severa, I thought you'd forgotten about me. I mean, I'm not exactly on board with joining you guys if you're just making out all the time though.”

Lucina coughs and feel her face heat up. Before she can respond, Morgan pipes up. 

“So, did you two kiss yet?” he sings.

Lucina's cheeks feel like they could burst into flames. “That's none of your business.”

“Is that a no then?” He ducks the pillow that Lucina pelts at his head. “Definitely a no. Someone's frustrated.”

“Severa eyes you all the time. I don't know why you guys haven't done anything yet, since you've gone out for a month and a half,” Cynthia adds to which Lucina has no answer. “Maybe she's waiting for you to make the first move?” She rolls over and sits up. She shrugs. “Or maybe she has misgivings over your fashion sense.” 

Lucina groans. She mutters, “You two should date if you're both so keen on teasing me.”

Cynthia and Morgan pause. They look at each other in horror.

“Ew! He's like my own brother!”

“And she's...Cynthia!”

“Yeah, I'm—hey, what is that supposed to mean?”

“Uh...nothing.”

“Wait, Severa's good enough, and, yet, I'm gross?”

“Okay, first of all, have you seen Severa? Like, seriously?” 

“What is with your family finding her all that? What am I missing when I see her?”

Everything.

Lucina lets out a breath. “It's not just her looks. It's—”

“That bad girl attitude she has?” Morgan suggests.

“Well, that has its own charm, but I was thinking of her more softer aspects.”

“Oh! Like that thing she does when she blushes and glances to the side. It's pretty cute.”

“I agree, though I meant—”

"That winking thing she does that gets your blood going?"

Cynthia throws up her hands. “I get it! I don't need to be here while you guys talk about how hot Lucina's girlfriend is.”

Lucina winces. She and Severa haven't actually used that word yet. "I don't know what's going on with her. It feels like..." Like she's pulling away from Lucina, becoming a figure in the distance that she can't reach. And it scares her.

Before Lucina can articulate her thoughts, the doorbell rings, and Morgan lazily gestures for her to take the lead in answering it. "Mom's at Aunt Lissa's, remember?"

She didn't. Irritated, she heads downstairs and opens the door. Severa's father is on the doorstep. He smiles at her, still garbed in his white robes as if scared to take them off. “Good evening, Lucina. Would your father happen to be home?”

She shakes her head. "He works late at the police department. You could always go down there and ask for him.” 

Libra hesitates. “That...would not be the wisest course of action, given what I have to tell him. It's some vital information I have regarding what's been going on in Valm.” 

Lucina feels a chill settle into her stomach. “Does it involve...the group responsible for Valm's bombing?”

“...yes.” 

She steps forward. "Tell me. I'll—"

"You'll what, Lucina?" Libra gently puts his hands on her shoulders, and she's floored by how much taller than her he is. How did Severa ever end up with the short gene when her parents were such giants? "You're still a child. You don't need to be caught up in a war that belongs to our generation. It's not your burden to bear." 

He turns to leave, and Lucina could feel her teeth grinding together in frustration. "Please tell your father I dropped by. He knows where to find me if he wants to hear what needs to be said." 

Lucina watches Libra leave like a ghost in the night, and she contemplates upon leaving the matter be and simply letting her father know. She's still undecided when she goes back upstairs to join Morgan and Cynthia in a squabble over the best Emblem character.

__

She's still uncertain of what to do when she tutors Severa in the library during lunch the next day. Lucina leans over, feeling her chest brush against the bare skin of Severa's shoulder, since the other girl is wearing a sleeveless top. It drives Lucina crazy. “Are you using the correct symbols for sine and cosine?"

“Yes, I'm trying to figure how to solve sin(x) squared equals three over four and get the same answer you got.” Severa bites at the end of her pencil. There's teethmarks along the plastic end of it, and all Lucina can think about is that Severa's a biter. “Wait, is it plus or minus the square root of three over two?”

Lucina doesn't answer because she gets caught up in admiring the pretty curve of Severa's jaw, the shape of her ear, the faint rose colour of her lips. Severa seems to catch onto her staring, because she looks up, unaware of how dangerously attractive she is to Lucina. “What?”

“Nothing.” Lucina shakes her head, moving away and reaching for her notebook. Glancing up, she catches Severa gazing at her with a confused expression. “Is something the matter?”

“No, you just look—” Severa flushes and look away. “—gods, you are just so stupidly pretty sometimes that it's a wonder I can find my own tongue.” 

Lucina's breath catches. Before she can stop herself, she leans in close enough that her nose brushes against Severa's. “If you want, I can help look for it.” 

Severa's breathing staggers for a few seconds before she jerks backwards. “Gods, Lucina! We're at school! I'd rather not get ravished on a library table, thank you very much.” She shuffles her seat a few inches away. Lucina can't help but feel rejected. “What happened to taking it slow?”

Lucina moves away, feeling the distance between them ache. “Can you blame me when it comes to you?”

Severa's nose wrinkles in a way that makes Lucina's stomach flip. “I just don't understand it.” 

“What do you not understand?”

“This.” Severa makes a vague gesture between them. “Us. What are we?”

Lucina feels the word pushing at the tip of her tongue. She almost says it when she hears Inigo's voice calling to them from behind, and Severa swears at the sound. Lucina feels inclined to join her.

Inigo strides up to them, a bright smile on his face. "How are my two favourite ladies doing today?"

"What about Noire?" Severa says, her tone curt.

Inigo amends himself. "I meant to say the other favourite ladies in my life. I see you two are getting acquainted with some trigonometry."

Lucina sighs. "Inigo, I was in the middle of showing Severa how to do this problem."

"My apologies. I just came to ask the lovely Severa sometime." He turns to her, and his jovial demeanour drops. "How is Noire doing?"

Severa shrugs. "Why don't you ask her yourself, lover boy?"

"I have, but she keeps saying she's fine when she's clearly shaken." He frowns and chews on the edge of one thumbnail. "I'm worried about her." 

Severa eyes him. "Yeah, I am too." She turns around, accidentally jostling Lucina who falls back and slams her elbow into a nearby shelf. "Oh, crap! Lucina! Are you okay?"

"Yes." Lucina rubs the reddened joint. Tears spring to her eyes. "I'll live."

Severa's shoulders slump. "I should have watched where I was. I'll make it up to you."

"You don't have to."

"Yeah, I do. Sorry, Lucina."

Inigo looks flabbergasted, and turns to the school star. “She apologized to you? Without sarcasm?”

Lucina places her palm against a snarling Severa's mouth. “Please, don't antagonize each other.”

Inigo places a hand on his chest. “I'm not trying. I'm genuinely shocked.” He leans in to study Severa. “Then, I suppose some of the other things Noire mentioned about you must be true as well.” 

Severa stands up and slams her bookbag onto the table. She shovels her books inside and gives Inigo a sour look. "I'm going to split, Lucina. I'll see you later." 

She takes off before Lucina can convince her to stay, and when Inigo whistles in appreciation when she leaves, Lucina wants to slap him. "She's changed a lot, that Severa," Inigo notes, musing. He turns to her. "I'm sorry I interrupted you two. You were clearly spending some time together, and it's a shame I disrupted it."

Lucina mumbles something and waves off his apology. She moves to put her things into her own bag. "I should get going too. I won't know where Severa's going if I don't catch up with her." 

"You don't?" 

"You do?"

Inigo hums. "I've accidentally ran into her on her off time once or twice, and she's never forgiven me for it. I'll give you a large hint." He taps the side of his nose and winks at Lucina. “She's a magnificent dancer if she only lets herself be seen more.”

"You've seen her dance?" Severa can even do that? Lucina's stuck on the image of Severa angrily stomping her ways through songs. "In the dance studio by the gym?"

Inigo shrugs with his hands held up. "I've given you a rather obvious clue. It's up to you as to whether you believe it and want to investigate it."

He leaves Lucina with more questions than answers, like many other people in her life recently.

\--

The school later find out that Captain Cervantes has been put in charge of the safety of the high school students' lives, and the tension in Severa's jaw from the announcement could crack walnuts alone.

Severa misses chemistry class, and that has Lucina worried since it's the first one she's skipped in a while. When she's absent from the next two classes, Lucina's nearly throwing herself out of her seat to go find her. It's with clear eagerness that she volunteers to give a note to the dance teacher from Mrs. Clearwater, who looks startled and clutches the sheet to her chest when Lucina hurls her hand up.

Lucina grabs the note from the science teacher and struggles to not dash out to the gym side of the school. She passes by the large green doors to a room a little farther down the hall that is informally considered the dance studio. When she steps inside, her breath falters and she quickly darts back out. She debates with herself, considering the implication of what she's about to do, but her curiosity overtakes her and she peers around the studio doors.

Inside a white room with a wooden floor and large windows that illuminate lonely patches of dying sunlight, Severa dances to the rhythm of dotted eighth and quarter notes, the swell of an unbearable crescendo building up until the melody reminds Lucina of a hail of falling stars—beautiful and tragic and halting as the bass swings from octave to octave almost ominously. The expression on her face is faraway and distant as if Severa is looking at some point beyond the horizon that Lucina can't see. Her arms swing around her body in wild movements, like a drowning woman grasping at her own body in desperation, but in time with the music, as if it's a measured performance of despair. Lucina watches her, and feels like she can see Severa's heart breaking through the rhythm of her stutters and steps, like a girl always on the edge of falling.

A gentle voice shakes Lucina out of her thoughts. “She's really good, isn't she?” A woman of a slight build with pink, wavy hair comes towards her and peeks subtly around the large green doors. “I've told her to show some of her friends, but she refuses each time. Although, that's a bit hypocritical coming from me.” She blushes. 

“Are you Inigo's mother? The dance teacher?” Lucina searches her brain for a name. “Mrs. Montoya?”

“Yes, but please just call me Olivia.” Inigo's mother sighs as she watches Severa across the empty dance floor. “I've also taught her how to sing, but she doesn't share that either.”

Lucina is surprised. “Severa never told me she could.” Nor showed any inclination to do so, to be honest. “I suppose you were also the one that taught her how to dance?”

“Yes.” Olivia stares off somewhere in the distance, the same faraway expression that Severa has showing on her face. “I came in one day after classes ended to find a young girl crying by herself on stage. She wouldn't tell me why she was alone or in the school with tears in her eyes, but she was hurting. And she didn't know how to show it. I didn't know how to talk her through it, so I did the only thing I do know how to do.” 

Olivia smiles at Severa with surprising affection. “I danced, but it caught her attention. She never asked me to teach her, but she came every week to watch me and, after a while, began to copy me. I—it was embarrassing, really. I'm not that good, but she didn't seem to care.” She brushes a braid of hair behind her ear. “And she was very open to getting better. More so than some of the students who actually are enrolled in my classes.”

“Why hasn't she shown anyone?” Lucina watches Severa in the distance, but Olivia gently takes her by the shoulder and leads her away from the door.

“Some dances are not meant for others to see. And others don't have any to see them. Severa didn't have any friends then.” She looks at Lucina and smiles shyly. “But I'm glad she has some now.” 

Lucina absorbs Olivia's words, hearing the distant, sad music in the background. “What song is she dancing to?”

“The Last Waltz of Queen Erinys. It's about an ancient Silesse queen who died of illness and heartbreak while waiting for her husband to come home. Her final plea is to the gods on the last night of her life, asking for her love, King Lewyn, to return for their children. He never does, because he's already dead and it's only because of the intervention of the wind god Forseti that his body moves at all.”

Oliva pauses when she sees Lucina's expression. “Oh! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to upset you! It's just such a beautiful and tragic story, and it's one of my favourites.”

“Not at all.” Lucina reassures her, though something sinks in her stomach. She's disturbed by how often she's hearing about tragedies these days. “I'm just surprised at how sad it is.” 

“Not everyone gets a happy ending,” Olivia says, softly. “In stories or in real life.” She checks her watch and makes a panicked noise upon looking at the time. “Oh, shoot! I'm going to be late for my appointment! Goodbye, Lucina!” 

She scurries away, and when the sound of her footsteps have faded, Lucina sneaks back to the open studios doors to peer in. 

Lucina thinks about Olivia's words. She watches Severa dancing across the empty room in the fading sunlight, expression unreachable and movements ephemeral, like a dream flickering in and out of existence, a figure on the edge of her vision about to disappear. 

She grows troubled.


	15. All the Small Things

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina goes through her memories of the times with Severa that mean the most to her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Decided to try a new way to approach a chapter, and I was reasonably pleased with how it turned out. Let me know what you guys think!

The year before Lucina starts school, she meets Severa when Cordelia brings her over to the edge of the forest where their families gather every Sunday. Lucina already knows Cynthia who chatters at her ear while Kjelle runs races alongside Owain and Inigo, all three of them stumbling and pushing at each other in turn as they reach their destination. Cordelia introduces herself to Robin and Sumia, and gently pushes her little girl towards the others who stare at her curiously.

The redhead is smaller than either Lucina or Cynthia, but looks like a miniature version of her mother from the colour of her hair to the slight frown and furrowed brows whenever she's puzzled. And even young and not in school yet, Severa is developing an impressive scowl. She breaks it often with frequent smiles and peals of laughter though as she chases and is chased by the other girls while their parents stand together, rejoicing and commiserating about motherhood in turns.

The second time Lucina meets Severa, her father, the priest, brings her, and it takes both Lucina and Chrom a few minutes to realize that Libra isn't a woman.

Chrom stammers and stumbles over his words while, to his credit, Severa's father only look mildly offended. The two men chat again, and Lucina's father apologizes a second time when Libra reveals that he has no last name because he grew up as an orphan near Plegia. After a few more awkward moments, Chrom excuses himself and herds his daughter towards the other girls who are already playing in a nearby meadow.

Cynthia wears a hood with rabbit ears on it that her mother sewed on, and Severa gives it a disapproving look that incenses the energetic girl. A few minutes later, the matter is forgotten as the rabbit-hooded girl swings a wooden stick at Severa, who pretends to be a queen with the power of ice, firing bolts of imaginary crystal shards. Cynthia dodges them and charges the cackling girl while waving her stick, letting out a cry for good. It's only later when they no longer play together that Lucina realizes that Severa was always the villain, so Cynthia could be the hero.

Severa throws her hands back in defeat and goes down with a screech that nearly makes Lucina's ears bleed, and the bunny-hooded girl tackles her into a bed of flowers. They tumble for a bit before Cordelia and Sumia come over to break them up, and Cynthia sits up with her rabbit hood nearly off of her head, scruffs of brown hair sticking out from the white cotton material. Severa's mother picks her up and dusts her off, pushing her towards Lucina whom she seems to have deemed as a safer playmate. Cordelia quickly discovers that that is not the case when the girls get stuck up in a tree not too far from the river less than ten minutes later.

The two protest the scolding they receive, and when Cordelia turns away for a moment, Severa slips a wildflower into Lucina's hand, pink and young and still in the stages of blossoming. Lucina giggles, taking the gift and inhaling in its scent, which reminds her of fields, meadows, and her friend beside her. Something warm blossoms in her chest at the sight of the slow smile spreading across Severa's face, a tingling that runs through Lucina's veins and makes her feel lighter. It feels like when her mother makes her pancakes, and her father throws her into the air before carrying her on his shoulders. It feels like home with Severa.

Libra calls to his daughter, and Severa shoots Lucina an apologetic look before running off to be picked up by her father. Lucina clutches the flower close to her chest as Chrom gathers her in his arms and tosses her over his shoulder, eliciting a startled laugh from his daughter. Everyone scatters and heads home, and Lucina guards her gift from Morgan who keeps trying to pull the petals apart.

When they arrive home, the flower wilts and fades. Lucina brings it closer to her face as if she could breath it back to life and watches as the lovely pink melts into a somber grey, the petals shrinking into one another as if the flower is folding into itself. Nothing she does brings the wildflower back to life.

Her mother catches her looking at it forlornly on their backyard porch and sits next to Lucina, touching her fingertips gently to her daughter's cheeks. “Not all beautiful things stay the same forever. That's why we must love them while they last.” Robin pulls the flower from Lucina's grasp and presses it into the middle of one of her heavy books. “We can still preserve it though.” She takes it out a few minutes later and places it flat against the cover. “And it's still pretty in its own way.”

Lucina thinks about what her mother said, and considers it very sad. She hopes that she could always enjoy the wildflowers given to her by her new friend.

Later at night, Lucina falls asleep with that new warmth from the day in her chest and thinks of Severa.  
___

A week before Lucina's eighth birthday, she and a gaggle of children go to play hide-and-seek in the path along the market. Owain's it, and everyone screams in surprise and laughter as they race away from him. Lucina splits from Cynthia and her brother, and accidentally bumps into Severa who glares at her before pushing her towards the other side of the hill. She darts up over the grassy mound, a blur of colours against the bright green, and before Lucina can blink more than twice, Severa's already gone over the hill, the bright red of her twin-tails snapping against the wind like pieces of a tattered cape before they disappear too.

Lucina takes the long route along the street before darting into the bushes besides a tall, wooden church that seems worn and warm at the same time. She stays quiet for a long five minutes before she peers out of the thick leaves surrounding her and sees Owain darting towards the marketplace and hollering for Brady. She sighs and shuffles out of the bushes, preparing to change her spot when something in the window behind her catches her attention.

At a small round table in the church's kitchen sits Severa's father with a woman with hair as dark as her garbs—the one who recently arrived in town with the girl Lucina's age. The young girl would normally lose interest in the scene, but there's a pile of bloodstained towels on the table as Libra cleans a wound on her arm, and the woman has deep bags underneath her eyes as if she's spent a whole week not sleeping. Lucina peers curiously at them and—with a slight tinge of guilt—presses her ear to the window.

“You should really go to the hospital.” Libra slowly wraps a thick layer of gauze around the woman''s wrist, a spot of red already blossoming under the white cotton. “Whatever compelled you to take a knife to your own skin?”

“I needed to get it off,” the woman mutters. “It was too visible.” She doesn't elaborate on what she had to remove, and Libra doesn't ask.

“Still, to cut so deeply. I'm not sure you meant to leave your little girl almost an orphan, Tharja,” Libra says mildly. “Had you arrived even ten minutes later, I'm not sure there would be much I could do.”

“I find that hard to believe.” Tharja keeps her gaze on him like she's trying bore through his brain. “I know who you are, and the things you've done.”

Libra keeps a steady watch on his work. “And I know you too. Who you used to belong to.” He picks up a scissor and snips the gauze, tucking the severed end around Tharja's wrist. “But that doesn't mean that we need to let those things define us anymore.”

“Do the people here even know who you were? What you've done while hoping to hear your Naga? A wolf in sheep's clothing is still a wolf, Libra. How long before they realize how vicious you really are?” The woman lets out a laugh. It sounds dry and unpleasant like a rasp scraping against Lucina's skin. “I would pray to your god that your daughter didn't inherit any of your instincts.”

“I already do everyday.” Libra stands, gathering the bloodstained cloth from the table to dump them into the nearby sink. He doesn't seem bothered by the stains. “Do you?”

That silences the both of them for some reason, the quiet coming on thick like the frozen surface of the lake nearby in the winter where Lucina's father takes her ice skating.

Tharja breaks it first. “She'll never know him as long as I live to help it.”

Libra sits down again, bringing two cups of something hot and steaming to the table. “She may ask one day. What will you do when she's older?”

Tharja changes the subject. She leans forward, her words coming out slowly as if in a drawl. “I'm curious about something. Between you and your wife, how many lives have you taken? A thousand?”

“That's enough.” The expression on his face makes Lucina flinch. "What about you? Is your daughter still at the hospital?"

Tharja draws a breath. "She's under monitoring." The dark-haired woman turns her attention to her wrist and flexes the bandaged hand. "Thank you." Her tone sounds uncertain as if she's not used to saying the words.

She stands and moves to leave the room before pausing at the doorway. Tharja turns to give him a final look. There's a flicker of something tight in her expression, a moment where Lucina thinks that if she could, she would skewer the beautiful priest where he sits. “The difference between you and your wife is that the only people she killed were soldiers. Should your past ever catch up to you, take your family and run. Listen to someone who's already escaped.”

With a sweep of her dark cloak, Tharja leaves the room while Libra frowns and begins to follow after her.

Lucina doesn't get to see what happens next, because she's bowled over by a force with bright blond hair and an infectious smile. They both go tumbling into the nearby bushes.

Owain reels above her, triumphant. He crows, “You're it, Lucina!” He bops her lightly on the nose while his cousin stares at him in surprise. She scrambles to her feet and peers into the kitchen window, only the find the pair already gone. “What?”

Lucina shakes her head. She's not sure how to describe what she just saw.

Her cousin fills in her silence. "Oh, I know! You're thinking about your awesome birthday party next week?" He stops and coughs, a hand on his chest.

Lucina places the back of her own on his forehead, knuckles resting against warm skin. “Are you okay? You can miss it if you're still sick.”

Owain sticks his tongue out at her. “Over my dead body.” He darts away from her before turning around, the sun glinting off of his hair like a golden crown about to fall. “Count to ten already!”

Lucina closes her eyes. When she opens them again, Owain's already gone.

She's lost him like she's lost Severa.

___

A year goes by after her cousin is taken, and Lucina's parents finally give her some leeway about going outside. Her mother still follows her like a personal protector along the road to the market and past the lonely church on a street corner by itself.

Robin keeps a sharp eye on her and Morgan. “Don't go too far, Lucina.” She stands close to her children, a maternal bulwark between them and every stranger that crosses their path. They head into the open air market, and Lucina's not allowed to stand outside the small town of tents where local farmers display organic vegetables, fruits, and freshly butchered meat. A friendly woman with arms thicker than Lucina's head hands Robin a bag of apples and comments that she hopes they've brought an umbrella. The grey clouds overhead look like they're about to break. Morgan tugs at their mother's hand and goes off to poke at blueberries displayed in plastic containers while Robin chases after him.

Lucina's eyes catch on something pretty fleeing along the road they came from—a butterfly speckled with blue and black marks that looks like it could vanish in a heartbeat. She glances back to where her mother is peeling Morgan from what was a former pile of cantaloupes and slips away if only for a few seconds, chasing the elusive creature that flits away from her down the small, paved street. She makes it halfway between the market and the church when there's a rumble overhead, and the young girl looks up.

The storm breaks out before she even has time to get under cover. It starts as a small sprinkling before the rain becomes forceful and insistent, the raindrops growing large and painful, stinging at her skin. The storm burst into a deluge that blinds Lucina until she can only see her hands in front of her face.

Lucina runs, not knowing where she's going until she slams into something wooden and solid, and the impact knocks her breath out of her lungs. Coughing, she feels her way around, searching for a door, a window—anything that will let her get inside and away from this angry act of nature. Her hand catches onto a doorknob and she pushes it forward, stumbling through the wooden doors and wiping away the rain from her eyes.

A warm orange light illuminates the inside of the building, lined to the front with wooden pews while a modest pulpit stands like a speaker before a crowd. Severa's father gets up from one of the pews he was sitting in and raises his eyebrows in surprise at her entrance. He quickly puts down the tome he was reading and sweeps towards her. “Are you injured?” He looks her over. “Lucina? Did someone hurt you?”

She shakes her head and promptly sneezes. Libra's expression softens, and he holds out his hand towards her. “Come. I'll help you get dried off.”

Fifteen minutes and a drenched towel later, Lucina sits at the small kitchen at the back of the church, eating a ham sandwich that Libra makes for her. He bustles around the kitchen, pulling a red mug with white lettering out of a pale, faded cupboard with a long scratch across the front. “I only have a spare set of my daughter's clothing around. I hope you didn't mind changing into them.”

Something tingles in her stomach at the thought that she's wearing her friend's clothing, but Lucina ignores it. “Thank you. Can you tell my mom I'm here? I don't want her to get worried.”

“I already did, little one, while you were changing. She sounded very relieved to know where you are. And slightly mad.”

Lucina gulps. Oh, boy. Her voice comes out small. “Is she going to be angry for a long time?”

“Your mother doesn't seem like the type. I think she was just happy to hear that you were safe, especially after—” His jaw seizes, and he looks like he's in pain. “She'll pick you up after the storm is over.”

Lucina glances at the crumbs on the plate, the mug in the priest's hand. “You're a nice man, but you don't have to be.” She recalls Tharja's words from a year before, and opens her mouth to ask about that encounter. The kind expression on the priest's face steals her words away.

Libra smiles. His tone is gentle. “We might not all be able to do great things, but we can all do small things with great love.” He sprinkles a dash of cinnamon in the mug of chocolate and garnishes it with shaved chocolate he keeps in a tin box on the counter. Libra places the mug in front of her, cautioning her to be careful of its heat before turning to make another one drink in a blue mug.

Lucina peers at the container in his hand curiously. “Is that for you?”

“Hmm? No, this one is for Severa. She's napping in the other room, and should be waking up sometime soon.”

“Oh.” Lucina's hand clenches around the smooth handle of her mug. “I haven't seen her for a while.”

“She...wasn't handling things well. She's gotten better, thanks to the gods' mercy.”

A pattering of feet catches both of their attention, and Severa appears in the doorway to the kitchen, her hair disheveled. She eyes Lucina's outfit. “Those are my clothes.” Her movements are limp and sluggish, like a corpse that doesn't know they're dead.

She doesn't say anything else, and Lucina kicks her feet and stares at her steaming drink, wisps of white curling up into the slightly chilly air. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine.” Her tone is flat, empty of inflection. Lucina would have preferred irritation or even anger over this appalling apathy. “Give them back when you're done.”

“Severa, sit down and greet Lucina. You know her,” Libra places a gentle hand on his daughter's back and guides the reluctant child to a wooden seat across the table. He places the blue mug in front of her, and Severa hesitates upon taking it. “It's been a while since you two last spoke.”

There's a guarded look on Severa's face like a dog that's been hurt before. “So?”

Libra frowns. “Severa...”

The redhead hunches up her shoulders and stares into her mug, as if trying to escape this conversation through it somehow. A clock ticks behind her, and the sound seems to put the girl on edge, twitching at every tiny click in the room. Lucina feels a sinking feeling in her chest when she looks at her.

The Severa Lucina knew used to smile and laugh. This one is quiet, pensive, her movements jerky and uncertain like a puppet with an inept master. Looking into her eyes is worse. There's something in them that reminds Lucina of a damaged mirror—once beautiful, now fractured and useless.

Lucina hesitates before glancing at her slim fingers wrapped halfway around the mug. “I missed you,” she confesses in a low tone, and Severa jerks as if struck. “I miss you and Owain.”

The silent girl looks like she wants to cry before her expression tightens. She doesn't say anything.

Lucina hears the clock tick away, feeling the time slip away like the friendship she had with Severa. “What happened when you found him?”

“He was dead in the river.” The words are said matter-of-factly, any emotion in them muted and muffled. “I walked by, and I found him.” Severa doesn't meet her eyes. “That's all.”

“Then, why are you like this?” Lucina can't help the tightness that comes into her throat, the prickling at the corners of her eyes. “You went away after you found him, and you don't talk to anyone anymore when you come back. You didn't even say goodbye when you left.”

Severa seems to shrink into herself, shoulders hunching until they almost touch her ears. She stares at the checkered pattern of the tablecloth, and Lucina slams the table with the flat of her palm, rattling the wood. She doesn't know why. She just wants Severa to react, to show something. “You act like it's your fault he died.”

Finally, emotion burst onto Severa's face. It's a shame that it's fury followed by a resounding grief that leaves Lucina stunned. “You don't understand. You act like you do, but you don't even try.” She shoves her mug away and storms from the table, the sounds of her retreating footsteps like a slap against Lucina's ears.

Lucina sits in the swollen silence that Severa leaves. She gathers her hands together and stares at them until a gentle touch on her shoulder makes her turn her head. Libra says, “It hurts when you don't know why your friend is pulling away.”

She wipes at her eyes with the heel of her palm in response until Severa's father offers her a tissue. “Why is she acting like this?”

Libra gazes out the window. He's silent for a few moments that seem too long to the young girl. “Death is something that not everyone handles well when they are first introduced to it. Even more so when it's the end of a friend or family member, and more so when you're young.”

“But she only found him. It's not her fault.”

“She sees it differently.” Libra glances at her, his tone almost a plea. “She may be rude and hard to know at times, but she's hurting right now. She needs you, Lucina, as a friend. Please don't ever give up on her.”

She thinks about his words. When she looks at Severa, she's reminded of the time her father accidentally smashed her mother's hand mirror against the kitchen table, pieces of polished glass scattering in a bright shower of metal. He tried to put it back together, but it never looked the same after. “Is Severa broken?”

Libra merely prays over her head and leaves to search for his daughter.  
___

In 7th grade when Lucina hits her growth spurt, she gets partnered with a glaring Severa for a geography project, and they meet in the library after school to finish it as quickly as possible. The height difference is awkward, especially when Lucina sits nearly a head taller than the other girl, but Severa doesn't seem to care if her shifting through the assignment papers and muttering is any indication.

Lucina feels her heartbeat jump whenever Severa gazes at her or when their forearms brush. She doesn't understand why she's so nervous and yet feel that odd, persistent warmth in her chest whenever the other girl is around, like just being near her makes Lucina feel like Severa is handing her a wildflower for the first time all over again.

Severa says something, and Lucina realizes that she's zoning out. She tucks an lock of hair behind her ear and fidgets under the seat. The redhead shoots her an irritated look and jabs at the map they've created together of ancient Akaneia. “We're done.”

“Oh.” A feeling like a weight sinks through her stomach, and it takes Lucina a while to recognize it as disappointment. Severa gets up and begins to put her textbook and pens into her bag, and Lucina panics. She stands up, regretting it the moment she sees alarm in Severa's eyes. “It was good working on this project with you. Cynthia, Kjelle, and I are going to go watch the newest Dusklight movie later on.” Lucina swallows, and she doesn't know why something feels like it's flitting around inside her belly. “Do you want to join us?”

“No.”

The short answer seems to suck all the air out of the space between them. Severa shuffles everything into her bag, and makes to leave. Lucina's not sure what expression is on her face, but the redhead looks back and she hesitates. A heartbeat goes by, and Severa adds in a rough tone, “I'm already going with Noire. And no, I don't want to go together.” She jerks her chin at the map laying on the table behind Lucina. “Give that to the teacher when you see her, okay?”

Severa leaves without another word.

After gathering up the map, Lucina drops off her school bag at home before heading to the theatre located next to Donnie's Diner. Cynthia's already got seats and jumps up when Lucina enters the darkened viewing room while Kjelle leans away to avoid the excited girl's swings, clutching her bags of popcorn tightly to her chest. Lucina scans the packed crowd for Severa and Noire, but she only sees a sea of heads before the lights flick out and Cynthia herds them all into the front-row seats.

It's only near the end of the movie that Lucina catches sight of Severa and Noire when she glances back at the exit. The two girls lean in close and giggle near the centre row seats, and Lucina feels something hot and poisonous climbing up her chest when she sees the affection on Severa's face when she looks at Noire. When the movie finishes, she watches the two head out the exit, Severa pulling out a dark umbrella with a flower sewn into the material as the pair disappears down the street, heads together and laughing.

Lucina feels Cynthia tugging at her sleeve while Kjelle waves a worried hand in front of her face. She turns and gives her friends a tight smile. “Are you ready to leave?”

They exit the theatre with that burning sensation scorching the bottom of Lucina's stomach. It's only a few days later when they discuss the Dusklight scene for the eleventh time where the hero punches his romantic rival in the face that Lucina recognizes the feeling as jealousy.

__

A few months before Severa offers her a ride back to town in the summer, Lucina wakes up in the hospital to the sight of her aunt peering over her. Lissa looks she would have smacked her niece on the forehead had she not been lying in a hospital bed. "Welcome back to the waking world."

Lucina tries to get up, but her aunt pushes her back down until the doctor checks the girl's vitals. When Aunt Lissa proclaims her reckless but okay, Lucina's parents surge forward from behind Lissa to hug her. "How long was I out?"

Coach Faulkner steps forward from the side of the room where she was watching. "You've been unconscious for a few hours now, Lucina."

Lucina falters. “But the match? The finals?”

The coach goes silent, and Lucina knows. The injured girl sits up and buries her face in her hands. Her head spins, but it hurts less than the grip on her heart. She whispers, “I'm sorry. I've let everyone down.”

The adults burst forth with proclamations and denials that she did. Her teammates rush in when Aunt Lissa lets them, relieved that Lucina has woken up. Kjelle announces that the girl who purposefully tripped Lucina was kicked out of the game and possibly off of the opposing team. Cynthia just seems relieved that she's awake. Lucina asks the normally energetic girl what she thinks will happen with their team now, and Cynthia pauses. She says, "We'll try again next year."

Lucina gets discharged after a couple of days of monitoring, despite her protests that she felt fine. The mutterings of sympathy Lucina gets from well-meaning schoolmates feel like they don't even reach her, not when she knows that she is the reason why her team doesn't move forward in their games. When the last bell rings, Lucina ducks her admirers and heads out into the field with a bag of soccer balls in one hand. She sets herself up in front of the goalie's net, feeling a burden on her shoulders that almost buries her under its weight.

There's a movement at the edge of her sight, and Lucina glances out of the corner of her eye. She spots Severa Faulkner leaning against the stands, watching her with a haughty expression, one strap of her top starting to slip off of her shoulder. They stare at each other across the field before the redhead glances up at the overcast skies, and Lucina decides to ignore her. The soccer captain slams a ball with her foot, sending it like a bullet past the goal line, the rope netting popping up from the force of her kick. It does nothing to relieve the feeling of guilt that feels like a solid stone sitting in her belly nor the headache that begins to spin at her temples.

She thrashes and bursts at least two soccer balls, making a mental note to apologize to Coach Faulkner and to offer to pay for their replacements. Sweat streams down her face, and all Lucina can taste is bitterness in her mouth that refuses to leave. Her mind feels a little clearer, and she starts to formulate a plan that'll help her team get to the championship finals next year.

She's startled out of her thoughts by the splatter of rain on her face, and she realizes that the clouds are breaking open, promising a vengeance for all the sunshine they had been enjoying until now. Lucina makes her way to the bleachers and when she gets there, she finds a black umbrella stitched with a flower on it waiting for her on the stands.

When Lucina tries to return it the next day, Severa denies that she ever had one.

__

It's embarrassing the context of when she first dreams of Severa.

Lucina slinks away from her bed in the dead of night and takes a long shower that she hopes no one hears. To her mild horror, when she slips back into her bed, her thoughts are of the redhead again, but this time, Severa's laughing in her dreams as easily as she did in the days before Owain disappeared. She leans into Lucina's shoulder, scoffs at her terrible jokes, and gives her that gentle, rare smile that she bestows only on Noire when the shy girl does something for her and she thinks no one is looking. In these dreams, Lucina gets that same warmth in her chest that she had all those years ago, and after several nights, has an epiphany of something so obvious that she should have seen it ages ago. The realization makes her happy and electrifies her nerves. It makes her treasure those moments where she gets to see the solemn girl smile like she used to when they were young.

But in her dreams before the break of morning, Severa always leaves.  
__

In the days before the soccer team trials when Ms. Faulkner supervises them, Lucina watches Severa's legs give out on her—the sweat running down in her face in droplets. The redhead drops down to her knees, shaking, breaths coming out in a rattling rasp that worries Lucina.

Coach Faulkner watches her daughter with concern creasing the lines around her eyes. Lucina's about to ask for a break when Severa gets up on shaking legs, pain flashing across her face before she grits her teeth and stands. She faces her mother. “Again.”

It's only by the third time when Severa falls and cannot get up that the coach calls for a break, and Lucina rushes to the redhead's side who tries to bat away her attempts to help. The exhausted girl eventually gives up and slumps into Lucina, her breath coming out in ragged gasps against Lucina's neck that has the taller girl flustered as her body moves into a mood not appropriate for the moment.

Severa's mother offers an open water bottle to her daughter. “You practiced hard today. Take a break. You've earned it.”

Her daughter snarls and swats at the water bottle. Lucina and Cordelia look at each other before the exasperated girl takes the bottle and brings it to Severa's reluctant lips.

“You'll do no one any good if you kill yourself at this rate,” Lucina says, gently as Severa drains the entire bottle.

Severa shakes her head. She clambers back onto trembling legs and goes back onto the soccer field. She does this every time she falls. How could Lucina not respect that?

When Severa passes the trials with flying colours, she brushes off Lucina's congratulations with a shrug but is unable to slink away before the taller girl lifts her up into a hug. Severa hollers, "Put me down! Gods, this is so undignified."

The other girls are staring, but Lucina doesn't care. She leans in and says, "I'm so proud of everything you've done to get to this point. You're amazing in every way."

Severa flushes and her eyes flit to Lucina's lips for a moment that almost feels like a lifetime. She ended up pushing the disappointed girl away. "Later, Lucina."

Which Lucina learns means never.  
__

Lucina wakes up on her couch after a short nap. Severa has been avoiding her calls and texts, and it's been sending the taller girl into an exhausted panic trying to reach her. A dread lurks beneath Lucina's skin, coiled spikes that scratch where the girl can't reach them when she thinks about how absent Severa's been, as if she's getting ready to abandon this world.

She tries Severa's phone again for the sixth time, and an endless ringtone answers her. She stares at the phone before punching in Cordelia's number and asking if the offer for dinner is still available. When Cordelia affirms that it is and sets the time for tonight, Lucina says goodbye and gets ready to leave. She heads to the front, pulling on her sneakers and making sure her clothes are clean and as fashionably coordinated as she can manage, which admittedly, isn't much.

Lucina takes a breath before the door, placing her forehead against the cool surface of polished grain in a small prayer for strength before she steps out of her house.

She won't give up on Severa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, guys, no chapter next week. I'll be competing in a martial arts tournament this weekend, so I'll be a bit busy.


	16. High Rise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dinner at the Faulkners' house grows tense with Cordelia's news, and things go from bad to worse when Lucina talks to Severa in her room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not certain of my writing schedule, but I am planning for every two weeks or so due to life stuff. I may post earlier as well, but every two weeks at the latest.
> 
> Thank you to everyone for your wishes of luck. I did end up winning my two divisions, and came home with shiny gold medals. That being said, I pulled my back and now have plenty of time to write at home. C'est la vie.

Severa's not exactly happy to see Lucina standing on her doorstep.

The redhead leans in, chin tucked tight to her throat. “What. The fuck. Are you doing here?”

Lucina keeps her tone cordial and light. “Your mother invited me over for dinner.”

“And you accepted without telling me?”

“You would have known had you checked your phone in the last two hours.”

Severa glances away. She runs a hand through her hair, and Lucina notes that her face is slightly sticky with sweat, a flush of exertion across her face. What has she been doing? “My mom hasn't made dinner yet.”

“I can wait.” Lucina smiles, forcing herself to relax her shoulders as her heartbeat races out of her throat. “Would you kindly let me in?”

Severa steps aside, and Lucina feels their chests brush as she sweeps past. She's suddenly distracted. “You can wait in the living room or something. I need to take a shower.”

Lucina merely nods, not trusting her voice right now. Severa directs her through an archway to the right of the door where a plush burgundy couch sits below a picture of a valkyrie streaking through the skies on a white horse, its resplendent wings trailing behind its body. “Who painted that?”

“My father, but you already knew that,” Severa mutters. She doesn't look at Lucina as she sweeps by. "Try not to cause any trouble." She slips through an archway on the other side of the room, disappearing from sight.

Lucina sits alone in a room adorned with the colours of blood and bone. The TV stands opposite from her, beneath a slender javelin that lies mounted on the wall above it. Curious, Lucina strides over to examine it, the hue of the wood like the polished sheen of black bamboo with a glint of polished steel at its tip. It looks like it was handmade, and Lucina can't help but wonder why it's on display in the Faulkners' home. 

On her right near the front of the house is a sitting area built into the house, whose windows are blocked off by heavy curtains that flare a brooding red against the white of the carpet and the walls. She makes her way to a shelf near the curtained windows where sculptures of tiny castles and homes of ceramic sit on display. All of them could fit snugly in Lucina's palm, and the intrigued girl admires the hours put into crafting the fine grains of the castle walls, the messy texture of a grass roof of a lonely hut. Libra's work again, Lucina supposes. Severa's lucky to come from a family of so much talent.

A movement beyond the slight part in the curtains catches her attention, and Lucina peers through fabric the colour of spilt blood to sees men and women gathering across the street, glaring at the Faulkners' house with expressions that puts her on edge. They mutter and move in agitated bursts like a mob before a lynching, angry muscle twitching beneath the pressed fabric of their deputy uniforms. Why is a portion of her father's officers here?

There's a sound of a door opening and closing, and Lucina hears Libra's gentle voice calling out to the crowd. “Is there something I can help you with?”

Severa's father appears to the right of the window, still in the heavy white fabric of his robe. He strides down towards the men, and Lucina sees sneers across the disgruntled crowd's face, distrust lurking in the corner of their expressions.

Lucina's caught by the scene. The broadness of Libra's back feels oddly comforting, the set of his shoulders like a captain in the first charge into the fray. He steps forward as if he's carrying a cross of heavy wood on his back, a weight that makes his footsteps heavy, and the crowd spread out to gather around him in a loose circle that has a cold tightness clinging to Lucina's belly. 

The priest looks around the scene, meeting the eyes of every angry man and woman who draws around him like wolves around a lonely lamb. He raises his hands as if in supplication and peers around again, but this time when he gazes at them, people flinch and the fury in the air dissipates each time like it's being knocked aside by a concussive blow. 

When he locks his gaze onto the last person, a woman with dark skin and a curled upper lip, she scowls at him for a long minute before she drops her eyes and steps back with her shoulders slouched, the contempt slipping from her face like a coin dropped through thin fingers. The crowd seems confused. Some wear expressions of respect and reluctance, others paint themselves with uncertain jeers. The men and women hover around Libra before the spell breaks, and the crowd disperses, murmuring and shoving their hands into their pockets as they drift away down the street.

Libra glances back at the front windows like he knows she's there, a glimpse into the priest that has Lucina starting back at his expression. When he slips back into the house and looks at her, surprised, Lucina swallows and takes a moment to meet his gaze, fear clutching at her throat like a tight grip.

Libra gives her a gentle smile, a far different look than what he showed a few seconds ago. Lucina wonders if she'd imagined it. “I hadn't been expecting you.”

“Ms. Faulkner invited me over for dinner. Sorry for the intrusion.”

“It's not one at all. I just need to make a little more for tonight.” He makes his way to the kitchen when he pauses and looks back at her. “My apologies. I forgot to ask. Would you like to help me make dinner?” 

The Faulkner's kitchen isn't as large as hers, but it's cosy with pictures of the family in neat frames on the walls. Severa's father hands her a bag of potatoes to scrub while he takes a knife to a pair of tomatoes and a cucumber. The blade dances between the flesh of the vegetables, and before Lucina finishes dumping out the potatoes into a colander, the cucumber collapses into a neat pile of thin slices. “When I was travelling with my fellow priests, I was often the one who cooked dinner for us all. Mostly because I do enjoy it, and because I'm the only one who could.”

A pot simmers on the stovetop, and Lucina's stomach rumbles at the smell of rosemary and thyme. Libra sweeps past her to lift the lid and peek beneath it. “I'm afraid I was just planning on making some stew for tonight. I hope you're okay with that.”

Lucina nods. “It smells fantastic.” She pours the clean potatoes into a pot and turns on the sink to fill it with water. She thinks about how dishevelled Severa looked when Lucina came to to the door. 'What were Ms. Faulkner and Severa doing before I arrived?”

“Wrestling, it sounds like.”

That's an...unexpected hobby for Severa to have.

He smiles at her. “I am being slightly flippant. Cordelia has been teaching Severa some self-defense, the same as I'd imagine your father has been teaching you.” Libra studies her as if deciding on something before he hands her a knife. “Could you cut the tomatoes into small chunks? I'll get the potatoes boiling.”

Lucina does so, and by the time, she finishes, Libra is watching her with a thoughtful expression. “Is something the matter?”

“Not at all. It just seems that you're exceptionally talented with a blade,” he says while Lucina shifts. “I hope that you'll only ever need to use that talent in the kitchen.” He turns to remove a tray of fresh bread from the oven, steam rising from the dark crusts in furious whorls. “I must ask, however, as to whether you've given my message to your father?”

Lucina pauses in moving the chopped vegetables from the cutting board to a clean plate. “I haven't.”

Libra doesn't look at her. “And why is that?”

"Whatever it is you have to say, it sounds dangerous. I need to know more information to convey the proper urgency to your message."

He turns to look at her, his gaze sweeping over the tension in her face. "You want to be involved. You feel a personal responsibility for what's happening. Much like your mother did in the war." He eases the bread onto a serving tray. "She was just a university student when she got involved." 

"My mother has nothing to do with the message you want to pass to my father."

"Your mother has much more to do with it than you think." Libra raises his eyes to meet hers, and she flinches back. “And you don't know what you're getting into, Lucina,” he says, softly.

She doesn't get to answer, because Cordelia arrives, hair wet and gleaming from the shower. She shoos Lucina out of the kitchen and takes over helping her husband while the former soccer captain fidgets on the couch in the living room, feeling uneasy at the conversation she left. She turns on the TV and catches a scene of barricades and quarantines in Valm, a burnt and damaged hospital surrounding by soldiers while sick civilians try to pass them. A solemn newscaster narrates the appearance of a near military regime in Valm while relaying information about skirmishes between a mysterious group and the soldiers, often ending with the strange attackers retreating as suddenly as they arrived. Lucina watches the news with a foul taste in her mouth as if she's taken a bite out of something blackened and rotting. 

Cordelia calls her for dinner, and Lucina shuts off the TV, feeling a twinge of guilt and relief. She makes her way to the dining room near the back of the house. A bowl of beef stew sits in the middle of a table made of wood so dark, it's almost black while a cabinet of fine china sits to one side. Severa's parents seat themselves on one side of the table and gesture for her to take the spot opposite them.

The younger redhead shows up by the time that dinner's set, freshly washed, and Lucina's overwhelmed by the smell of Severa's hair—the scent of a meadow blooming in the spring that sends her heartbeat spiralling high like a crescendo in a symphony. She leaps forward to hold out Severa's seat for her, and the redhead shoots her a look. Libra frowns slightly, and Cordelia pretends not to notice as she sets down steaming bowls of beef stew. Severa's father hands out loaves of toasted bread, and Lucina's floored by her first taste of the priest's cooking. She could see why Cordelia married him based on his culinary skill alone.

Libra passes her a napkin. “I hope it's to your liking.”

“It's delicious. My mother would have trouble cooking a better meal.” Lucina is technically correct, as Robin is often more concerned with the nutritional value of the food rather than the taste, which leads to some...odd combinations. “Are you the one who usually makes dinner?”

Libra smiles. “Yes, though Cordelia has her own nights. Severa's a fair hand in the kitchen as well.” He gives his daughter a gentle look of encouragement while Severa stares at her stew. “She helped gather the herbs from our backyard garden.” 

Severa mutters, “It's not that hard, geez.” She shovels her dinner into her mouth like she's trying to get away as quickly as possible. “How are things at work, Mom?”

Cordelia lifts her eyebrows in surprise. “There's been a bit of change in the personnel. Gerome's mother has been working at the department for a while now.” Cordelia turns to Severa. “You've already met her when you were younger. She's one of the survivors in my squad back when I was in the military." She turns back to Lucina. "I've also been put in charge of staff management and have spent the last week looking through performance reviews and interviewing supervisors and staff.” 

Cordelia reaches out for a loaf of bread and cracks it in half, steam wafting up. Her tone is casual. “Consequently, I've fired half of the sheriff's department today based on my evaluation.” She turns to her husband. “Could you pass the mashed potatoes please?”

Lucina jolts. “Wait, is that why there were so many people outside of your house just now?”

“They've gathered a lot faster than I expected, but, yes, that would be why. I suspected that it would be a highly unpopular decision on my end. They still have two weeks left to find new work, but I am going to ensure that it will not be at the police department.”

Lucina asks, “But why?”

Cordelia shakes her head. “They weren't up to the new standards that the sheriff is laying out.” 

"So, my father authorized this."

Cordelia doesn't respond.

“You're painting a target on your back! You all are!” Severa bangs her fists against the table, and Cordelia frowns. The younger redhead draws her hands under the table in response. “You really think there won't be repercussions from this? You'll have tons of people after you.” 

Guilt flits over Cordelia's expression before her brows smooths out. “It has be done. Still, I would advise you to be careful. Both of you.” She gazes at her husband and daughter, and there's something in Severa's furious expression and Cordelia's crumbling one that has Lucina feels like she's intruding—a stranger peeking into a scene of a family falling apart. 

Severa mutters something and leaves the table. Lucina glances after her and turns back to excuse herself when she finds Cordelia already nodding.

“I didn't expect that she would take it well. Please go see if she's okay, Lucina.” Cordelia leans forward. “Oh, but please leave the door ajar while you're with her.” She gives Lucina a knowing look, and the flustered girl feels her face burns. She makes her escape up the stairs and around the corner to Severa's room where the door is already open, giving her a glimpse into the redhead's room.

It's strangely bare. The room is clean of clutter with the books on Severa's shelves near her door arranged by category. The only poster adorning the white walls is one above the bed of a blue and black speckled butterfly with the words "Help, I'm Alive" scrawled underneath it. Even the rose-coloured vanity table across from the bed has its bottles and jars of cosmetic creams and lotions arranged in two clear lines in front of a mirror carved in the shape of a seashell. On the far side sits a large window whose view is partially obscured by the branches of a large tree in Severa's back yard. Next to that are the wooden shingled panels of Severa's closet doors, slightly opened and giving a glimpse into clear plastic tubs of shoes of which Lucina counts at least three containers. Perhaps, Lucina doesn't give Severa enough credit, but she hadn't expected the other girl to be so neat. Or isolated. Severa's room feels like its owner could up and leave at any moment with hardly a change in the room. 

The girl in question fumes on her bed with her hands clenched in her lap and glances up sharply when Lucina approaches the threshold. A flush creeps up her neck and with a pause that feels like a lifetime, she inclines her head slightly to invite Lucina in, who approaches a bed topped with a beautiful, white comforter and a headboard of carved oak.

Lucina clears her throat when she reaches her. “Are you okay?”

Severa snaps, “Just dandy, thanks.” She chokes on the rest of her retort as Lucina sits beside her on her bed, and doesn't make eye contact with Lucina when the taller girl slides closer to her. Lucina hears the shallow change in Severa's breathing when she nears and feels her own heartbeat jump in response. 

Severa coughs. She tosses her hair back, exposing her throat, and leans backwards onto her hands. She tilts her head, spilling strands of brilliant red across her cheeks and shoulders. “So, why are you really here?”

Lucina takes her eyes off the long line of Severa's neck and chest, the tautness of her torso. “You've been avoiding me. I wanted to know why.”

“Gods, I've been busy, Lucina. Am I allowed that?” Severa snarls, but she drops her eyes. “You don't own me.” 

“I've never asked to do so. I'm asking, because I care for you and I'm concerned.” Lucina leans in to brush a strand of wayward hair behind Severa's hair. The other girl flinches, and Lucina snaps back, hiding her hurt with a swallow. “What are you trying to hide from me?”

Severa glances up sharply. “Why does it always have to be about you?”

“Could you please not pick a fight to avoid the issue?” Lucina sighs with an edge of exasperation. “I know you use it as a method of distraction.” And effectively. 

Severa scoffs but doesn't say anything. 

"Please. I don't want to do something drastic just to get you to look at me."

The redhead turns her face away, and Lucina's patience snaps. 

Lucina straddles Severa's lap, pinning her with her weight and nearly pushing the other girl backwards on her own bed. She succeeds in grabbing Severa's attention, but realizes how much it feels like she's forcing herself on her when Severa stiffens like she's carved out of stone. She has a moment to feel a sharp spike of regret when the trapped girl inhales sharply. Lucina braves a glance at her face, expecting a snarl and a prompt ejection out of Severa's room and possibly her life.

She's stunned to see the pupils of Severa's eyes blossoming into dark discs, the weight of her gaze growing heavy and half-lidded. One of her arm wraps itself possessively around Lucina's hips, the touch of her skin a heated brand against Lucina's back that makes the surprised girl stifle a sudden moan. Severa nuzzles Lucina's neck, her breath coming out in hot bursts against her throat. Lucina swears that she can feel the graze of teeth on sensitive skin. She swallows nervously, her own breathing growing ragged when Severa growls, a low possessive rumble that sends the blood from Lucina's head down into areas not conducive to thinking. Lucina pushes Severa fully onto her back against the bed, crimson strands spilling across the white sheets like blood painting lurid lines across fresh snow. Both of them heave, their breathing quick as Lucina creeps a hand underneath Severa's shirt, fingers tracing lines across the redhead's stomach that makes her squirm.

Severa sighs and wraps her arms around Lucina's nape, pulling her closer as she mutters, “If you wanted a fuck, you could have asked.” 

Lucina's desire deserts her at the words. Awareness splash into Lucina like a wave of cold water until she's left with a sobering clarity and distinct regret. She clambers off of Severa and pushes herself away until she's sitting at the far end of the bed. “I don't want just sex.” 

“That's not what it seemed like a moment ago.” Severa snarls, her face red. She manages to sit up but turns her gaze away, her breathing still shallow with the rapid rise and fall of her chest. “So, what do you really want?”

“I just want the truth, Severa. What's going on with you?” Lucina swallows. “With us?”

“You just straddled me on my bed and seemed very interested in getting underneath my clothes before suddenly saying you don't want sex and confusing me with your mixed signals,” Severa sighs. “And you invited yourself over without telling me.” 

“You've been evading my calls and attempts to reach you. You're being extremely secretive about something, and when you usually do that, it's in regards to a burden you refuse to share with others. It makes me worried for you.”

“So, all in all, I'd say we're not doing well.” The frustrated girl lets out a long exhale. There's a thick, husky hitch to Severa's voice that she seems to have trouble getting rid of. “So, what now?”

Lucina glances at the bed they're sitting on, and closes her eyes to steady herself. She pushes out the urge to lay Severa back down against the white comforter. “Can we talk about what's going on between us?" She glances at Severa sidelong. “About how you've been dodging my calls since the police began patrolling the school? Since Captain Cervantes was announced as the primary officer in charge of the students' safety?”

Severa nearly jumps. “You're overthinking things. I've just been trying to adjust to the new English teacher."

"You have Mrs. Montoya for English." Lucina has heard that the dance teacher teaches a few rare academic classes when she's not shying away to her studio. "I walked you to her classroom last week." 

"I don't need to have to be in his classroom to learn to get used to him." Severa rubs at the back of one reddened ear. "I just need some space—"

"Severa, I'm the daughter of the sheriff, one of the best investigative officers in the three main cities. Do you really think I wouldn't notice when you're not being truthful with me? You don't need space. You're puling away." 

The redhead drops her hand but doesn't say a word.

In the silence that bleeds between them like a wound that won't close, Lucina throws out her words to thwart the sinking feeling of something precious slipping away. “I could speak to Captain Cervantes for you.” 

Severa glances at her so sharply, Lucina could have cut herself on her gaze. “He's dangerous. Stay away.” 

“Why? He's always been accommodating to me, and I have a few choice questions to him in regards to Owain's investigation."

“You don't know what you're getting into.” 

Lucina's struck by the echo of Libra's words, and something twists in her chest like a thin rope of the verge of breaking. “You don't think I can help? Or you don't think I'm capable of figuring out how to do so?”

Severa looks straight ahead, and Lucina's seized with a thought that roils her insides like a beast clawing inside her ribs. “Or maybe you don't trust me at all.”

The words strike her like a physical blow. Severa recoils, panic flitting across her face, and Lucina nearly does throws up from the visual confirmation. “Lucina—”

“You don't even want me to touch you.” Lucina doesn't hold back the bitterness in her tone. “You've known me for years, and still, I'm—” Lucina wipes at her eyes with the heel of her palm while Severa watches with a hovering, almost helpless expression. “I don't even know what I did to destroy your trust in me.” 

“It's not you. I just don't trust anyone,” Severa's words are almost inaudible, a whisper on the edge of fading. “Even Noire. Even my parents.”

“Even yourself?”

Severa doesn't answer. 

Lucina closes her eyes. She begs herself not to cry. “This isn't going to work if you don't trust me.” 

Severa looks away. “Maybe you would have earned it had you cared when it mattered.”

“What was that?”

“Remember when the soccer team got cancelled? I—” The silence in the air hovers, something thin and separating the two of them about to bend, something begging to be formed. “—never mind. It's not like you need me anyway.” 

Lucina's heart thumps in her chest at Severa's tone, a solid hit that feels like it might never get up again. “What do you mean?” Her voice comes out tight, high-pitched. It cracks, on the verge of breaking. “Of course, I need you, Severa. You're—”

“Convenient to have when you remember I'm there.” The flippant girl shrugs. 

”Severa, that's not fair. I don't even know what you're upset with me about." 

"It doesn't really matter anymore. We might do better if we spend some time apart. As friends." Severa looks away through her windows as if hoping to be anywhere but here. Her tone is dismissive. Her hand clenches at the comforter, slender fingers twisting tight lines into the white material like she's wrenching something dear out of herself. “It's just a crush, Lucina. You'll get over me."

Lucina knows she won't. “Never.”

“Overdramatic, much?” Severa's voice comes out softly. "Maybe it's time for you to go."

Something twists in Lucina's stomach, and she gasps as if a brand is searing her insides. She blurts out, “I can't support you if you don't tell me when you're hurting.” 

Severa turns and smiles, eyes still dark and grinning. Lucina's caught by how pronounced her canines are now that she notices them, and how wolfish the redhead looks at this moment. And how sad. "Sometimes, it feels like always." 

Lucina aches for her. "You've never told me."

A half-hearted shrug. "It doesn't really matter." 

"It matters to me. If this problem with Captain Cervantes is bothering you this much, I'll--"

"Are you even listening to me? Don't get near him!"

"I can get some answers out of him. I'll—"

"Don't! Just don't!" The pitch of Severa's voice rises like a shrieking kettle. “What if you get hurt, and you end up in a river like Owain?”

The words click together in Lucina's mind, a fragmented puzzle that's finally taken form. Her stomach sinks low, a heavy stone disappearing deep below her feet. “You see him when you look at me, don't you?”

Severa's gaze falls to the floor. Her voice comes out quiet. “I just don't want to get you hurt too.” 

"I'm not him, Severa." Lucina's words come out hollow. Her heart hurts.

Severa shifts away, and Lucina doesn't go after her. 

The gap between them might as well have been a chasm.


	17. Someday, We'll Get it Right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina talks with Robin about what happened with Severa, and the backlash from Cordelia's decision follows her home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter after this one from Lucina's perspective, and then we'll revisit our favourite snark knight.

Lucina leaves shortly after dinner.

Both of Severa's parents meet her with worried, inquisitive expressions, and all Lucina can do is shake her head, holding back the stinging in her eyes and the tightness in her jaw. Cordelia gives her a brief hug while concern dances across her face. She exchange glances with her husband before slipping away when Lucina murmurs that she's fine and heading up the stairs to her daughter's room. It's nighttime by the time Lucina goes, and she feels smothered by the sight of the heavy dark sky outside. Libra offers to drive her back to her house, and when Lucina insists on walking, Libra nods and slips on his shoes to accompany her home. 

They don't talk for more than half the journey there. The silence between the pair is stifling. It feels like a condemnation. 

Libra shifts his head to look at her, and the movement might as well have been the raising of a pistol. “It sounded like you and Severa were fighting upstairs. Do you want to talk about it?”

A laugh bursts from Lucina's throat—the bitter note surprising its owner. “I'm not sure there is anything to talk about anymore.”

“While I didn't hear all of the words, I can recognize the tones used anywhere.” Libra's eyes are expressive, compassionate. He inquiries, “Were you dating my daughter?”

Lucina strides forward, away from him and away from Severa. She ignores the burning in her eyes and throat. “I was.” 

Libra looks sad. His kind tone makes Lucina want to cry. “What changed that?”

“She doesn't want to date anymore. When she looks at me, she sees—” A dead friend that she couldn't save. “—a bad memory she can't get rid of.” Lucina stops, wiping at her eyes. “Just being around me hurts her.”

“From what I've seen of her interactions with you, that's not true, Lucina. It wasn't true when you were children, and it's not true now.” 

“But that was before—” Lucina falls silent.

“Before Owain's death,” Libra finishes softly, and Lucina drops her head. 

“How can I compete with a memory of someone who's already gone?” Did Severa always see Owain whenever she looked at her? Did she see Lucina at all?

“That's not up to you. It's up to Severa whether she chooses to let go.” 

“Great job she's done so far,” Lucina spits out. Her stomach curls at her tone. “I'm sorry. I don't mean to—”

“You have every right to feel your own emotions, Lucina. Never trust anyone who tells you otherwise. You're allowed to feel upset, confused, and hurt, especially when you don't know why someone is acting the way they are.”

Lucina feels something thick in her throat at his words. It passes in a moment. “Thank you. I...I just feel a little strange talking about your daughter...”

Libra shakes his head. “I would be one of the first as well as Severa to admit that she's not perfect. She's headstrong to the point of obstinacy, she struggles with being honest with her vulnerabilities, and her tongue could cut you deeply.”

It already has. 

Libra continues on. “But Severa has what an older priest in my former group calls an old kind of love in that she loves through and through. She's not the kind of person who'll give up on someone who has her heart.” He gives her a look that the distraught girl can't quite interpret. 

“She...” Lucina stops and stares at her feet, the lines of her sneakers blurring through the burning in her eyes. “I don't know if she feels the same way about me that I do about her. I don't know if she ever did.” 

Libra looks at her thoughtfully. “Come over to the church tomorrow. I have something to show you that may change your mind.” 

Lucina doubts that, but she agrees nevertheless. Libra bids her goodnight at her doorstep, and asks her once again to let her father know of his message. She agrees with sagging shoulders when a thought occurs to her. “Wait, you don't have any objections about me having dated your daughter?”

Libra shakes his head. “If I did, now would not be the time to voice them.” He turns and starts down her driveway before pausing. “And for the record, Lucina, I really don't. My wife, as you know, would agree with me.” He gives her a gentle look and slips away down the streets, leaving her staring after him and wondering why Severa's parents are so ridiculously cool.

She skulks into her house, bypassing Morgan who appears in the kitchen doorway, his mouth falling open as his words die in his throat. He stares after her as she breezes past him to the back and out onto the backyard porch where she parks herself on the top of the short set of stairs that connects to their yard. She wipes at the wet trails on her cheeks and stares up in the sky, the dim glittering of stars that feel indefinitely far away. They stare at her dully like they've lost their shine.

There's the sound of footsteps behind her, and, after a moment of hesitation, her brother sits down besides her, staring into his hands as if he wished they contained the words to say. “Are you okay, Lucina?”

“No.” 

Morgan nods and ducks his head. “Is it Severa?”

When Lucina stays silent, his expression crumbles, and he wraps his warm arms around her shoulders while she places her hand on his forearm and leans into him. “I'm sorry, Sis. I really am.” 

Lucina glances at him sidelong. She feels so hollow, like a well drained of water. “Are you going to go after her?”

Morgan shakes his head. “No. Not when she used to be yours.” 

Lucina shrugs, trying to raise one shoulder carelessly like Severa does, but something tightens in her chest. “She doesn't want to be so anymore.” She doesn't add the doubt about if she ever was.

“That's her terrible choice then.” Morgan glances at her face. When his words does nothing to stop the wet sheen in his sister's eyes, he adds. “You'll find someone else. In no time, you'll forget about her. She's just a girl.”

Lucina doesn't look at him. “Yeah.” 

They stare out into sky, sitting in silence while Lucina drowns in her grief. The night goes chilly, goosebumps rising along their skin, when Morgan offers a final hug and leaves. He's quickly replaced by her mother who doesn't say a word, merely opens her arms, and Lucina collapses into her, weeping. 

They stay like that for ages until Lucina's tears run out, and she's left feeling empty, her senses muted and slow. She misses the first half of her mother's sentence when she realizes that Robin is talking to her.

“...must have been so hurt for you to cry like this. What happened to you?”

Lucina shifts away, sitting up straighter and resting her hands on her knees. “I...” Her knuckles blanch. “I went over to the Faulkners' house for dinner, and—”

There's a bang against the front door, and Robin casts an irritated glance at the insistent pounding before apologizing to her. She heads over to answer it while Lucina wipes at her face and follows her, keeping a few feet behind her mother.

Robin swings the door open, revealing a bristly Cervantes and a group of uniformed deputies behind him. “Can I help you, gentlemen?”

Cervantes eyes her, pulling up to his full height to tower over her. “We're here to see your husband. Is the sheriff here?” He makes to push past her when Robin steps in front of him, blocking his path. “Move, woman. This is important.”

“You're trespassing on private property if I don't give you permission to enter. This is the sheriff's house, and even you are not immune to the law, Captain. I will have you arrested by these officers in uniform if they dare to call themselves that under this charade of officiality.” She gives the deputies a hard look, and they avert their gazes, cowering slightly under her stare. Lucina feels an unexpected wave of empathy sweep through her, since she knows that experience well. 

Cervantes goes purple. He leans, moustache bristling. “I am an officer of the law. I can vacant you from the premises if needed!”

“Do you honestly believe that expelling the sheriff's family from their own home does not reap its own consequences? How did you manage to convince so many people to believe something so foolhardy? Do you think that this won't come back to haunt you?”

The deputies glance at each other, uneasy. Some of them murmur amongst each other, and are looking down the streets as if they would like to quietly leave the scene. Captain Cervantes glares at them before reaching into his coat and pulling out an official-looking document. “Your husband may not be the sheriff for long.” 

Robin scans the document. “A petition to Mayor Emmeryn for a re-election of the sheriff's office,” she says, quietly.

“You've heard of your husband's recent authorization to fire half of the hardworking officers from their positions based on the questionable evaluations of the inexperienced assistant sheriff, correct?”

Her mother's eyes flicker. “I've heard that the assistant sheriff has made a vow to clean up the department of officers with questionable ethics, yes.”

He glares. “Questionable ethics based on a single person's whim? You know that many of these fine citizens here—” He gestures in a large, sweeping motion to the men and women behind him, who take the movement as a cue to clamour and push in confused turns. “—are inquiring whether the sheriff has finally let the power get to his head and is fit to continue serving his term.”

The smug man turns to her while Robin arches a fine eyebrow. “You, of all people, are calling out the sheriff on being power-hungry? Given your well-recorded history?” She looks at the deputies with such a disappointed look in her eyes that some of them start slinking away, unable to meet her gaze. “And the rest of you choose to follow him at his heels.” 

“Now, good madam, no need to get hysterical. I'm merely doing you a favour by announcing this beforehand, so you are well aware of my intentions to run for sheriff. I believe it's time for our current one to retire and for some new officers to take over keeping the peace in this town.”

Lucina wants to vomit at the fact that the traitorous captain can say all of that with a straight face. Her mother seems to feel the same way as she runs her eyes over the young and uncertain faces of the officers behind him—men and women who were impressionable, ambitious, and lacking character all the same. 

“I've been a teacher to some of you personally,” she announces to the crowd, “and I thought I taught you to think better than this. I'm sorry that I failed you.” 

The youngest of the officers flee at her words. They split from each other and head back into their vehicles, heads down and shoulders cringing at Robin's words, leaving only a couple of older deputies who had always opposed the sheriff standing awkwardly in front of their house. They also turn to leave, lifting their chins in defiance but unable to look Lucina's mother in the eyes before they slink away down the street and into the night.

Uncertain of what to do now that his audience has dispersed, Cervantes attempts to shove by her again when Robins holds up her hand, and the captain stares at her, befuddled, until she begins listing off of her fingers. “Invasion of privacy, trespassing, and intentional infliction of emotional duress—how many things would you like me to charge you with, Captain? Do you even have a warrant to be here?”

The enormous man stares at her. By now, his officers have left, save for a lone deputy with an unsettling smile waiting for him on the sidewalk and Cervantes stands by himself on the doorstep of the man he's trying to replace. “You have made an enemy of which you have no understanding.” His voice comes out quietly before he turns and lumbers away from the house. Lucina watches him leave, thinking of Severa, and feels something hot and furious burn into her veins. She darts past her surprised mother and down the driveway towards him.

Cervantes bellows, “De Rais!”

The young man on the sidewalk with brown hair and a commonplace face stands at attention. His face twitches slightly as if holding back a sneer, though he holds a bouquet of flowers for some reason. “Yes, Captain?”

“Don't take that tone with me. Gather the others and tell them—”

“Captain Cervantes!”

The irritated officer casts a glance at her and continues on. “Never mind. Tell them to meet me at the station.” 

Lucina strides forwards until she blocks the door to his patrol car, and he glares at her. “I have something to speak with you about.”

“I already told your mother what I came here for.” He places a meaty hand on her shoulder to push her aside.

“I meant about how you lied in your investigative report in regards to my cousin's death about not being able to come up with a single lead. How does a man with your experience not find a trace of anything?” 

Cervantes turns to her. “This again? Are you an ally of that brat of Cordelia's? Do you even know who she really is?” He leans in close. “That girl's a wild animal like her father. She could probably kill a man without hesitation and forget all about you in a heartbeat. I would be careful of her if I were you.” He steps back, back stiff. “Why don't you ask the priest what he's done during the last war?”

Lucina considers her words carefully. “I would be foolish to blindly heed the words of a man who seems so intent on making others seem more dishonest than he is.” At Cervantes' sharp glance, she adds, “It's fortunate that you're known for your reputation of integrity, isn't it?”

The captain looks like he wants to take Lucina's head off with a swing of his heavy hand. “Such a tongue. Do you get that from your mother?”

“I get many things from her. One of which is the ability to know when someone's holding back information from me.” She steps forward, getting into his space. His eyes flicker, but Lucina holds her ground. “And you're involved in something that has your hands tied behind your back, like a puppet on a lonely string. Who are you dancing for?” It's a guess, but it strikes hard if the jerk from Cervantes is any indication. 

His eyes swing from side to side, surveying the environment, reeling at the sight of Lucina's mother at the front door, ready to launch herself at him the moment he moves against her daughter. “You have no idea about what you're talking about. It's a shame that you've been infected by—”

“You used to be an honest officer, exemplary in your courage and your tactical skill. My father spoke often of your dedication to defending innocents no matter what. What happened to you?” 

His eyes bulge, and his face turns a marvelous shade of maroon. For a long moment, he stays like that as if frozen before his shoulders slump and his spine seems to sag as if it grew sick of holding up the weight of the things he's done. He whispers, “I made a bad deal, because I thought I knew better.” 

“What?”

He lifts his head, blinking, and Lucina has the strange impression that he's truly looking at her for the first time. “Tell me, do you plan to follow in your father's footsteps?”

Lucina blinks. “Absolutely. There's no greater honour I can give to him.” 

“Even if it leads to a path where you can't change how it ends?”

“We'll challenge our fate. My father will overcome everything he puts his mind to along with his companions, and I will be by his side. We determine how it ends.” 

Cervantes drops his head, his moustache drooping almost to his chest. He looks like an old man. It startles Lucina to realize he nearly is. “I've always respected your father, though I can't say I've always liked him. I hope you're right.”

He glances at her, and there's a odd youthful yearning, a wistful awe that Lucina can't quite place. “I'm sorry. I truly am for everything that's about to come.”

He gently pushes past her to slip into his car. “May you make better decisions than I ever did, and may Naga guide you when she didn't guide me.” He drives out of her driveway without another look back.

Lucina hears the sound of approaching footsteps and turns to the man Cervantes called De Rais. Something about his movements has her tensing. 

The deputy stops short of her and asks, “Are you friends with Cordelia's daughter?” When Lucina doesn't answer, De Rais hands her a single white lily and gives her that strange smile full of teeth. “For your pretty friend. Tell her I'll be saying hi soon.” 

He turns and heads down the street, whistling all the while as Lucina drops the flower into a nearby trashcan.

She makes her way back to her mother who waits at the front door with worry and an odd gleam in her eyes. 

Robin asks, “What was that about?”

“I was just asking something for...someone.” Lucina ignores how her voice breaks.

Her mother eyes her. “Someone who happens to live at the Faulkners' house?” She takes Lucina's hands and guides her to the kitchen where she makes both of them tea. She hands her daughter a mug and sits her down at the kitchen table. Lucina doesn't drink hers, but there's something soothing about being able to wrap her hands around something warm as she's recounting the events of the evening. She stumbles and goes silent when she gets to the part about entering Severa's bedroom.

Robin merely rubs at her arm, giving her space to gather her thoughts. When Lucina lifts her head and wipes at her eyes again, her mother hugs her to encourage her. Lucina draws a long breath. “I'm...I was dating Severa Faulkner. Up until tonight.” 

“Until tonight?”

“You're not surprised about me dating Severa?”

“Honey, I predicted this before you guys went on your first date. You're not the most subtle person in regards to your affection.”

Oh. 

“I suppose I...I may have been more obvious than intended.” Lucina shifts in her seat. “But it doesn't really matter now. She broke it off with me.” Lucina stares at her drink, steam wafting from the tea in opal whirls. “It must seem trivial to you. That such a short relationship could have me so—”

“The time in a relationship is not always the best indicator of how meaningful it was.” Robin reaches out and pries one of her daughter's hand from the mug. "You can spend a week with someone and know them better than someone you've met years ago." 

Lucina glances at their hands linked together. She asks, quietly. “Did you predict that she would break up with me?” 

Robin hesitates. “That was always a possibility, given her history.”

“Her dating history?”

“No, what happened with her finding Owain. A death of a friend is something that always stays with you.” Robin looks at her mug now, staring into its content. “I would guess that she said being with you reminds her of him.”

"She didn't need to say it." Lucina feels a sharp pain in her chest like a blade tearing through muscle. “How can I make her see me instead of Owain? I'm not him.”

Robin taps her chin in thought. “It sounds like she's haunted by what happened to him.” Her voice goes quiet. “As we all are.”

The pair sit in silence, the quick ticking of the kitchen clock the only thing that's heard. Lucina shifts, bringing her gaze to her mother's eyes. “What did you mean that it was always a possibility?”

Robin pauses, something in her eyes that reminds Lucina of what she looks like before she teaches something. “Before I answer that question, can I ask you one first?” At Lucina's nod, she continues, “Given what Severa's gone through, what does she need right now?”

“She...she needs to be alone and not in a relationship—”

Her mother shakes her head. “What does a someone like Severa need, not what she says she needs or what you think she needs. What is the actual thing she's longing for but has not asked?”

Lucina tilts her head in thought. “Space? Closure? Forgiveness?” She swallows. "Owain?" A tinge of jealousy goes through her like a possessive, angry stab. She immediately feels nauseous that she could ever be envious of her dead cousin, given what's happened to him. "I know at the very least that she doesn't need me." 

"We're going about this the wrong way. Let's change tactics." Robin meets Lucina’s gaze. “Do you understand her?”

“Of course, I do. I talk to her almost everyday—”

“Not like that. Do you understand her at her core? What makes her cry? What makes her laugh? What she dreams about? What she’s scared of? Do you see who she really is underneath everything she says and does?”

Lucina admits that answers aren’t exactly jumping into her head. Her brows furrow. “She cries out of frustration, when she's hurt, at the height of her emotions. She pretends to groan at puns but secretly smiles at them.”

Robin arches an eyebrow. “What kind of puns?”

Lucina squirms in her seat, blushing as she drops her eyes. “We were in the library, studying, when the topic came up. I asked her if she thought puns were punacceptable.”

“What did she say?”

“She told me to get out.” Lucina leans forward, resting her arms on the table. “I don't know what she dreams of. Wait, she...she dreams of leaving Ylisse.” She can't hide the hurt in her tone, and Robin reaches out to squeeze her hand.

“Leaving Ylisse isn't the same as leaving you.” 

Lucina's tone grows slow, sad. “She's already done that.”

Robin shakes her head, and Lucina is confused. “Continue on. What is she scared of?”

“Commitment.” 

“Besides that.”

“She's scared of getting me hurt, and...” Lucina goes silent for a long time. "...that it's her fault that Owain died." 

Robin sighs and laces her fingers together. "I know. It was only months after he was killed that I realized she had been set up as a scapegoat by some of the officers in the town. It's not believable, of course, but it's enough to preoccupy thoughtless minds with gossip and to silence her out of shame. Her parents and our family did our best to mitigate the rumours, but the damage has been done." She stares out into window for a long time, silent and sad. "We lost two good children that day." 

"Did you know about the corruption in the sheriff's department the entire time?"

"I had suspected it when I moved here and noticed odd patterns in some crimes not being reported. Your father did his best to address the officers and have them transferred to other departments, but the lack of morals was pervasive." Her mother drops her hands and taps her finger along the surface of the wooden table. "We had to expose the corruption in a large way."

"We?"

Robin shrugs. "I finally convinced your father to let me help him." 

Lucina pauses, digesting the information. "Severa's mother said that she fired half of the sheriff's department today. Was she deliberately targeting the deputies you suspected?" An idea hits her. "Did you already know about it?"

Robin smiles grimly. "It was my suggestion."

The young girl gapes. She recovers quickly. "Which is why you weren't surprised when that crowd showed up on our doorstep."

"It was a possibility, but with Cervantes' move, we can now be certain of where his loyalties lay." Her brows crease as if she's calculating something, moving pieces across a chessboard in her mind. "But that's not anything you need to deal with."

Lucina slams her hands into the table. "I'm so sick of people telling me that as if I'm not already involved and leaving me in the dark is some kind of blessing in itself. I feel like an idiot and useless while everyone is hurting around me, and no one trusts me enough to help."

Her mother's eyes widen. There's a flicker in her eyes like pieces of a machine are clicking together. "Was that also something you and Severa fought about? Do you feel betrayed that she doesn't open herself to you?"

The heaving girl tenses. She doesn't answer, and by the light in her mother's eyes, she doesn't need to. Robin places a hand on Lucina's and squeezes. "If it's about that, then it has nothing to do with you being worthy of her trust."

"It feels like it's all about that." Lucina grits her teeth. "How can it be anything else?"

"That's the issue you need to answer." Robin leans forward, straightening up. "Can it be anything else? Is it even about you? What is at the core of her lack of trust?"

"I don’t really know.” 

"And what is your plan for finding out?"

"Talking to her about it is out of the question. I guess I could talk to the people who know her well? See if she's expressed why in other ways like writing." She feels her thoughts clearing as she hears her words, a light growing brighter at the forefront of her mind. “I can find out why." She frowns, doubt wriggling in her stomach. "And maybe the truth is that I don't know her at all."

Her mother smiles. “That's a good plan. To add to that, I’m not saying that your feelings aren’t genuine, but I would encourage you to question the assumptions they’re based in. What is the root of your feelings for her? What is the reason behind your actions towards her?”

Lucina groans. She drops herself onto the table and throws an arm over her face. “You know the answers to all of this, don't you? But you’re not going to tell me.”

Robin shrugs. “I wouldn’t be much of a teacher if that was all I did.”

“...I'm in disbelief that you’re using this moment to teach me life lessons.”

“Moments of setbacks, failures, and disappointments are the best times to learn. They’re when you’re the most open to changing the actions and habits that caused those results in the first place.”

Lucina sighs and run her fingers through her hair. “Mother, can you just tell me what to do?”

Her mother shakes her head. “If I did, I always will be stunting your ability to decide for yourself. How can you figure out how to make the right decisions if someone else is doing the thinking for you?”

"So, what do I do?"

"Look into it. Research it. You already have a good plan." Robin gets up and kisses the top of her daughter's head. "Believe in yourself, Lucina. The answer has very little to do with you."


	18. Slow Down

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina visits Libra at his church, and they not only talk about Severa, she finds out Libra's role in the war and some clues about the reason behind the Grimleal activities. After debating with herself, she decides on what to do with Severa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have been waiting to write the ending scene for ages. I swear, it must have been at least two months. TWO. Anyway, please read and enjoy. There's a lot in this one, so you... uh...you may want to sit down for this one.

Lucina heads to Libra's church the next day. 

The inside of the church is warm, awash with the gentle light of burning candles, but the priest is nowhere to be found. She wanders through the main hall, empty and lonely like it was abandoned by its owner, into the kitchen and out an opened door. She wanders into the fields behind the church. 

Libra stands near the forest next to a chopping block, the white of the priest's robe contrasted by the orange, pink, and red hues of the lilies around him. A cluster of white ones surround him, and he dips his head as if in prayer. He steadies a chunk of wood on the block as an axe rests across one shoulder, the blade glinting silver in the sunlight. He swings it, and the axe splits through the wood as if it isn't even there. The priest hardly looks exhausted, his brow free of sweat, despite the neat stack of chopped firewood beside him. 

Lucina coughs to catch his attention before approaching him. Her legs tremble. “Father?”

“Libra.” He smiles and takes the axe off of his shoulder, although he doesn't let go. “When you marry Severa, then you can call me 'Father'.” 

Lucina doesn't laugh, and Libra's expression slips into something solemn. He sighs and props the axe against the chopping block, the wicked curve of the blade looking like it could cleave through a skull. He seems bigger somehow, broader. Sadder. “I'm sorry. That joke was in bad taste, given the situation. Let me make us something to drink first—”

“I'm all right.” Lucina thinks about Cervantes' words. She hesitates. “I've got something to ask you first.”

“What is it?”

“Please tell me the truth. I'm so tired of people withholding information from me." She takes a breath. "What was your role in the last war?”

He eyes her carefully. “I was a priest as I am now. I served in a brotherhood called the Band of Arms.” 

“But what did you do?”

He looks away. “I served as a witness to the execution of the Grimleal leader 20 years ago.” 

Lucina frowns. “We're taught in history that he was locked away for life.”

“That is also what the military heads told your father after Chrom and his troops stormed the building to capture him. In truth, the moment the soldiers left, an agent of the Emblem killed him on the spot.” 

“How did he die?”

“Brutally.” Libra sweeps past her towards the open back door. “And no less than he deserved.” He disappears into the church, and after a moment of hesitation, Lucina joins him.

Libra bustles around the kitchen, his tall figure impassable and mute, like a lighthouse in the distance that she can't reach. He doesn't say it, but Lucina gets the feeling that he isn't open to talking further until he makes them their drinks by his singular concentration on his task. She sits down at the kitchen table as Libra pours hot water into two mugs. He grabs them and slips one over to Lucina, taking his own and sitting across from her. She drinks from her mug, the warm liquid spreading down her throat, soothing and mild. Her shoulders relax, and she looks over to Severa's father, who watches her with an impassive expression.

Lucina takes a breath. “If the Grimleal leader was killed, why not just tell us?”

“The reason is related to what I wanted to talk to your father about." Libra glances at her. "First, what do you know about the Emblem?”

“They're a centre of military and civil law, known for their love of paperwork.”

“True, but they're also deeply divided internally due to the lines of Grimleal members infiltrating their outer divisions. This is going to sound pretty incredulous, but at the core and heart of the Emblem is what they started from—something that's considered a myth and a popular television show. There are top-level leaders and agents who maintain the facade of the bureaucratic Emblem while holding sizeable authority in their respective region.” He sips at his tea. “What better way to hide their existence than to mock at it themselves?”

“Wait.” Lucina remembers that show. She always had a fondness for Argent. “So, you're telling me that there are agents living in a volcano—”

“No. That part is most definitely fictional.” 

“—but there are actual agents named Sable and Azure.”

“Those are titles. The agents' identities are extremely guarded with few people having knowledge that they actually exist.”

“With you being one of them.” 

"Yes, only people who work under the agents would know of them." Libra's fingers tighten around his mug. “I served under agent Sable during the war.” 

Lucina's brow furrows. “As a priest while also being part of the Band of Arms.”

“They were men of the cloth—orphaned by the war and brought together by their faith and skill.”

“Skill in prayer?”

"No." Libra goes silent for a long time. “The Band of Arms was a group of young assassins for hire who dressed in the clothing of clerics. I joined when I wasn't much younger than you are right now.”

Lucina opens her mouth and closes it promptly. She doesn't know what to say. "Have you..."

"Yes. And I have been targeted back." He pulls down the collar of his robe to expose his throat. There's a line of raised scar tissue that runs across the front just below his larynx. "The one on the back of my neck is much worse."

Lucina starts. "Is that why you grow your hair long?"

Libra doesn't answer. He lets go of his collar, and it pops back into position, shielding his scar from view. "I won't tell you everything about how I came to that group. It's irrelevant." 

Painful too if the sudden spasm across the priest's face is any indication. Lucina changes the topic. "How is that related to what happened to the Grimleal leader?" She searches her memory for a name vaguely remembered in a textbook from last year. "To Validar?" 

“Rumour has it that Validar started the war, because he was looking for his missing daughter. However, that turned into something darker as young boys and girls started disappearing from their homes, and bodies began appearing in fields and forests. And occasionally rivers and lakes."

Lucina's throat tightens. A wave of grief sweeps through her, nearly drowning her in its wake. It takes several minutes before Libra deems her able to continue with the conversation.

He sweeps his fine hair out of his eyes. "Validar took Sable's only son. When the time came to capture him, the moment the other agents left, he...let's just say for certain, that Validar was most certainly dead when Sable sent his body for disposal. Except...his body was gone when we came back to retrieve it. A contact of mine wrote me recently to suggest that he may have been given Grima's artifact."

"Grima?" The word rings on her tongue, and she feels an unpleasant crawling in her skin like the blood in her veins is reacting to his name like a dog to a master. "The god that Grimleal worship?" 

Libra nods and gets up, gesturing for her to follow him. Curious, Lucina trails behind the slender man to the front of the church. Libra pops open a secret compartment from his pulpit. "Wait, before we discuss this further, I want to give you what I called you over for yesterday."

He lifts a thin, dark book from a drawer and holds it out to her. Lucina takes it and opens the book, startled to see a sketch of herself on the first page—eyebrows drawn down in a pensive look in slender inked lines while thicker, elegant ones outline the strands of her hair. She looks serious and sad. She looks so faraway. "What are these?"

"Severa's sketchbook." Libra passes her another one. "I lifted it from the trash yesterday morning, but as you can see, it's quite pristine like someone took great care to ensure it stayed in good condition." 

She stares at him before she flips through it, seeing herself in poses from jumping to kicking to laughing, all in clothes sharper than what she normally wears. There are neat notes on the sides detailing how Lucina could improve her outfits. About a third of the book are filled with arrows and comments of Lucina in outfits from thick coats to dresses to something that beneath thick lines of black markers Lucina could vaguely make out as herself wearing rabbit ears for some reason. Severa really wanted Lucina to wear different clothes.

There's sketches of others as well—Noire captured in delicate lines with a fleeting smile, Libra with hands clasped in prayer in strong but slender strokes of a pen, Noire's mother in harsh scratches that belie a coldness to her beautiful features, an oddly detailed one of Mrs. Montoya caught in the whirl of a turn, the expression on her face intimate and vulnerable as if she's before a lover. Lucina feels a burning brand of jealousy sear into her stomach that Severa could capture the look with such love. "She's amazing." But why does she hide so much of herself?

"Severa is a private person at heart," Libra says as if reading her mind. "She used to hide her drawings from me as a child. She was afraid that I would laugh at her efforts. In time, we overcame that fear, and she became an excellent student."

Lucina smiles at an image of a young Cynthia holding her side in laughter as she topples off of her bike. "She has your eye for beauty."

Libra glances at her. "That she does." 

A particular page catches her attention, and Lucina stares at an image of herself pulling away a mask while looking off somewhere, bits of armour and clothing floating away from her as if absolving her of their weight. Her expression is distant, relieved as if a massive burden has been lifted from her, and she holds a heavy mask in her hands like she's saying goodbye. "Is that what she sees when she looks at me? Someone who carries too much on her?"

"No. That looks more like someone finally being free," Libra says when Lucina finishes the sketchbook, only to reopen it and look through it again. 

"She could have just said something to me. Anything." But as Lucina traces her eyes through the sketches again, the details painstakingly crafted in every shape, the line of her smile, the crease in her brow as she frowns, she's stunned at the sheer talent that Severa denies. The Lucina in the drawings ages from a cheerful girl just entering school to the slightly gangly, serious young woman she'd grown into. And besides the fashion notes are scribbles—writings of suggestions about how to help Lucina in things from fashion to being less solemn to exasperated exclamations that the taller girl needs to bring an umbrella more often.

Pieces of Lucina's thoughts knit together as she slowly flips through the book a third time, the care and thought in each comment startling. She's dazed with the weight of her realization. "She was always thinking of me."

Libra nods. He gently pulls the sketchbook away from Lucina's fingers which spasms slightly, their owner still stunned. "But she tried to throw these away and was distraught today when she couldn't find them. Why would that be, Lucina?"

“Because she changed her mind? She wanted these notes?”

Libra shakes his head. “If you would allow, I'd like to share part of my story to illuminate the situation.” 

When Lucina nods, he starts, but he hesitates as if not certain about what he would say. “By the time I had joined the Band of Arms, I had been...terrorizing Plegian villages for a while—striking at soldiers, civilians, men, and women alike. I won't go into detail about the choices I made to get there, but I despised myself, Lucina. I hate how full of anger I was and how acting on it never managed to fill the hollow feeling in my heart. By the time, I met Father Ocampo, I had never known the tender touch of a parent or an acceptance that I didn't have to earn, even my own. Despite being the leader of us all, Father Ocampo was stern but fair, full of grace when we didn't deserve it, and not afraid to call us out on the things that was holding us back. I had a heart filled with so much regret and shame that I wasn't able to accept the care he had for me until I learned to let go of my burdens—until I could accept that what happened to me in my childhood wasn't my fault, no matter how much I felt otherwise.”

Libra closes his eyes. “When I met him, I saw the man I wanted to be. I wanted to give thanks to Naga's gifts and bestow grace and compassion to everyone I meet, to love beauty and hate evil, so I played the part of the person I wanted to become under his tutelage.”

“And have you?”

Libra falls silent. “At this point, it's irrelevant.” He cocks his head in contemplation. “If I am honest, I am not sure anymore.” 

Lucina frowns, digesting this information. After a few minutes, she asks, “What happened to Father Ocampo?”

“He died, as we all do in one way or another. A man who teaches others to trade coin for lives has many enemies. Three Grimleal parties raided our camp one night, a band of boys with nowhere to go, holding us at gunpoint until Father Ocampo stood up and said that it was him they were looking for. They shot him and left his body as a warning. We buried him at sunrise, and that was when I happened to run into Agent Sable who had been looking for our group to help against the Grimleal attacks.” His smile is flat, almost bitter. “Not one of us said no to his request.

“I went to serve the Emblem in the capacity of a priest, to carry on the good of Father Ocampo's legacy to make up for all of the evil I've done.” He stares at the statue of Naga at the back of the church, her marble eyes unseeing and blind. “I don't know if I've accomplished it.” 

Lucina gently touches his arm as he continued to stare up at Naga who remains silent on the question of absolution. “I think you have. At least, you've shown my family and I more kindness that you needed to. And I feel safe talking with you. You've come from a place of acceptance, of non-judgment, because you've gone through so much yourself. You understand what it's like.” 

“Thank you, Lucina,” he says, quietly. “It means more than you know.” 

They stand in silence in front of Naga's statue, a serious-looking woman with a sash arching around her arms and behind her head like a protective halo. She looks distant and cold, but is said to be the most compassionate protector of mankind. Is it possible to be both?

Libra breaks the quiet, his voice like a stone dropped into a still pond. “Does my story help illustrate the paths you have in regards to my daughter?”

Lucina stares up at Naga for a few minutes. When she speaks, her tone is thoughtful. “If I understood correctly, the issues driving her are guilt and the need for atonement, and the inability to release either. Then, do I forgive her until she lets go of what's holding her back?”

Libra shakes his head. “Severa has to learn to forgive herself through the grace of Naga. All you can do is meet her where she's at, Lucina, and love her until she's able to love herself.” He smiles. “Someone once said to me that when hearts and minds come together, they sometimes change each other as if in transformation. Give her love and acceptance without demanding anything of her in return, give her space to grow and hurt and heal, and walk by her side until she can walk by yours. That's how I was changed. However, that's because I wanted to. If a person doesn't want to change, nothing you do will help them.”

“If that happens, what would you do?”

“I would move on.” The priest sighs and turns towards her. “Severa is my daughter, and I care about her feelings but you deserve kindness too. If she won't change, I would encourage you to love her anyway but move forward with your life. If you do not, you may lead yourself into unhappiness, hoping for something that won't come.”

“That's a heavy choice.” Lucina exhales, a weight in her chest lifting until she can breathe. “But I feel strangely relived.”

“And it's yours. I can provide counsel and guidance, Lucina, but in the end, you make the decision. Remember that you are also responsible for the consequences of it too.” 

“Thank you then.” Lucina wavers and sits down on the hard surface of a wooden pew. “I just...I need to digest everything.” 

Libra nods and gently lays the sketchbook beside her, and Lucina starts. He says, “You may do what you'd like with this. Severa has already chosen to let it go.” He steps back and eyes her. He remarks dryly, “I take you that you still haven't told your father about my message.”

Lucina colours, but she shifts to face Severa's father. “You are right. I have not. You say that you don't want to get us involved, but to leave us in the dark is to blind us with your burdens if you fall. Valm is under attack, and half of the sheriff's department are planning to mutiny against my father and his officers. To not involve us is to ignore the reality that we may be drawn in, regardless of whether you will it or not. The only way to move forward without hindering us is give your children the ability to defend ourselves, which includes knowledge of whom and what we're fighting.” 

Libra evaluates her for a long moment before he smiles. “Well-spoken, Lucina. You've been blessed with your father's courage, and your mother's eloquence. After hearing that, it would be disrespectful to you to not include you in my message. However, it would be better if your father is here to hear it too.”

Lucina calls him, and when she elaborated on Libra's lead, her father stated that he'll be right there, turning up in Robin's car less than fifteen minutes later, red-faced and huffing. The priest confesses to Chrom that Validar had been slain rather than captured, and the sheriff nods, confused what this has to do with anything. Libra remarks that he's about to explain soon, pulling a bundle of paper tied together with a red cord out of the compartment in his pulpit and gesturing for them to lock the church doors behind them.

A crisp, white letter dangles between the fingers of one of Libra's hands while a crinkled, yellow stack of parchment sits in the other. “My friend who runs the church in Valm sent me a disturbing theory of why the Grimleal has been kidnapping children as well as some literature he had...borrowed to lend credence to his thoughts.” He passes by a shelf of thick books and pulls a rather large tome with a fraying cover to add to the pile. 

Libra gestures for them to follow him into the kitchen. He pulls the curtains close and locks the back door before spreading the sheets across the table. Lucina's father furrows his brows at the sheet on the far left. On it is a depiction of twelve monsters or beings around an abyss in which a nightmarish dragon lurks, his six eyes glaring at them even when captured only in ink. The priest flips open the tome to a parallel image of twelve heroes on top of a fortress surrounded by what looked like those same twelve monsters.

The priest elaborates, “The theory behind this story is that Grima, the god whom the Grimleal worship, is said to have come from the Old World, which is made of nightmares. Or rather, nightmares are the memories of the Old World. He has gone through many names and incarnations with the sole purpose of destroying all life in the world. Long ago, he pushed people to the brink of extinction until twelve heroes made a pact with gods to use their power and pass it through their bloodlines, sealing Grima who was known as Loptyr then.”

He moves onto the next few sheets, images of weapons and heroes arising from what looks like an giant inferno set upon a lonely plateau. “In history, this event is known as the Miracle of Darna in which a drop of a god's blood was offered to a seeker who was reborn with the holy bloodline of their respective gods. However, enduring the blood binding rites used to tie the gods' favour to the heroes was agonizing beyond description. Other seekers of the gods' favour in the past have not survived the transformation.” 

“As for these twelve, there have been stories that the blood binds ended up killing them, and, in desperation, the gods themselves stole their bodies to fight against Grima and propagate their descendants, bestowing the bloodlines with a special brand and god-like powers. In either case, the Twelve Crusaders came from this event.”

Lucina leans away from the sheets on the table. “That sounds horrifying.” 

Chrom presses on. “But what does that have to do with Validar and the Grimleal?”

Libra gestures to the folded white letter on the table. “My friend, Father Matthews, has a disturbing hypothesis that links the ideas. He suggested that the Grimleal have started accumulating the holy weapons of the Twelve Crusaders, though some have been lost to time. Why is another matter, as they have been said to only be useable to only descendants with the correct holy blood and marked with a brand, and even then only under times of extreme duress.”

The priest switches to the book, sifting through the pages where detailed image of tomes, swords, bows, staves, and axes are carefully preserved. He points out a few weapons in particular, which must have been the holy weapons. He goes through the next few pages until he stops on an image of a book covered with dark red felt and a golden circle with four points leading out of it. On the other side of the page is a book whose golden engravings forms an image of four torches connected together at their base. 

“Father Matthew's suspicion is that the Grimleal has picked up Mjölnir, also known as the Book of Wrath. Its original owner, the magic knight Tordo, was said to destroy battlefields with lashes of lightning with the rising of his fury.”

He flips to the other side. “And this is Valflame, which is said to be able to summon a cataclysm of fire from the sky.” 

Libra turns the page to an inked image of a long, thin sword with a slight curve like the forgotten tooth of an enormous beast. The guard flares in axe-like shape, appearing to be made from bone. 

'This is the Balmung, weapon of the sword saint Odo, who was said to wield it with such speed that an enemy would be cut five times in the span of a normal stroke.” 

Next comes the drawn image of a staff with a red orb set at its top below a golden arch with flowing decorations coming from it like a shaman's tool. “And this is the Valkyrie staff—said to be able to resurrect someone from the dead but at a great price.”

Lucina's heartbeat stops at his words. She digests Libra's words and thinks of Owain. “What price? Does it say?”

Libra shakes his head. “No, my book has limited knowledge on what it costs its former wielders. I would have to search further for that information.” 

Chrom eyes the weapon closely. “All very interesting, but I still don't see what this has to do with the Grimleal.”

“Father Matthew writes that he thinks their ultimate goal is to retrieve the Heart of Grima and fully revive him.” Libra stops on a page drawn of a leather tome laced with heavy buckles as if to clamp it close. A closed eye is drawn on top of a dragon with six wings, and despite the fact that it's merely a drawing, Lucina feels a strange call to it, a burning underneath her skin as if her blood can't decide to draw near or away. She wonders why it feels so familiar. “It is said to be imbued with the soul of Grima himself, and is known for the absolute corruption of anyone who touches it.”

Chrom prompts, “When you mean corruption, what are you referring to?”

Libra lifts his gaze. “Moral corruption, spiritual corruption, mental corruption—it's even known to accelerate diseases to their worst case scenarios, and can make a person go from healthy to deathly ill in mere minutes.” 

He turns to a page with a book with a greyish-blue cover embossed with the symbol of a golden dragon that looks almost serpentine. “And this is the book of Naga, which negates every effect that the Heart of Grima delivers. It is said to imbue courage and hope to those within its proximity, and have been vital in winning every battle against Grima in all of his incarnations.”

Libra shakes his head. “I mentioned before about the tale of the gods possessing the bodies of the heroes. Legends have it that in the past when an artifact is in contact with a suitable descendent's body upon death or shortly afterwards, the will of the gods in the weapons can take over them.” He lets loose a long breath. “After we ...after I let Agent Sable butcher Validar, we walked away to discuss how to handle his body, but by the time we came back to the room, he was gone, the bloody footprints signalling that he had walked out on his own. We immediately launch a search for his body, but we could never find it. I suspect now that we've all been had. That the Grimleal had expected us to strike Validar down and create a vessel for Grima that way.” Severa's father closes his eyes, covering his face with his fingers. “We played right into their hands.” 

Chrom frowns. “But if Grima has been drawn back to this world via Validar, why hasn't he undergone another war? Or is he bidding his time for something else? Was Validar carrying this Heart of Grima when he was executed, and if he was, why wasn't it removed?”

“No, he had no such tome on him, which is why I think one of his followers must have snuck back to plant it on him. Either that or someone who was in our ranks. As for why, they haven't struck back earlier, I don't know. It's possible that they may have lost the tome and are desperately looking for it. The power of a god is amplified immeasurably when they are connected with their respective weapons. Or perhaps Validar was an imperfect vessel for Grima, who was only able to draw a portion of his strength through.” 

“A lot of this is speculative.” Chrom studies the pages spread across the table before carefully pulling Father Matthew's letter to him. “This also suggest that Grima was summoned back only partially, and that the full ritual requires the blood of the Twelve Crusaders who sealed him away, though there appears to be a stronger effect with spilling the blood of children.” Lucina's father looks sick and deeply disgusted. “And that's why they've been kidnapping them and killing them.”

“That is his theory.” Libra raises his eyebrows. “I'm inclined to talk to him in more detail before I accept it as fact.”

Chrom replies, “And here I thought you were a man of faith.”

“I am.” Libra closes the rasping tome. “I'm also not a man of blind ignorance. I should like to go to Valm to talk to him soon.” 

Lucina knows where this is heading. “Father, take me with you.” 

Chrom shakes his head. His tone is gentle. “You know it's too dangerous.” 

“Chrom.” Libra's tone is stern. “Considering the stunts you pulled off in the war, you are not the best person to give a talk about caution.”

Lucina's father ducks his head and his cheeks coloured slightly. “That may be true, but—”

“It's just an talk, Father. The chaos in Valm is said to quiet down, and if Father Matthews' theory confirms our suspicions, then we have knowledge that we can leverage against the Grimleal. At most, it'll confirm whether Libra's theory is true or not, and it'll give me a chance to see you in action because one day, I—” Lucina takes a breath. “—I hope to follow in your footsteps and make you proud of me.”

Chrom's eyes soften. “I always am, Lucina. Everyday. It would be a deep failing on my part if I ever leave this world without letting you know.” 

“So, you'll let me join?”

Chrom pauses. “I will need to discuss this with your mother before I can say yes. If we decide that it's safe enough for you to come along, you may come on the condition that you'll follow my orders exactly as I give them, and if I tell you to do something, do it promptly and without question.”

Lucina sees his military training showing. “I will.” 

“Good.” Her father turns to the priest. “When are you planning to go?”

Libra says, “I would like to leave tomorrow, but I've heard on Friday, the school will be closed for a day-long staff meeting. Perhaps, we can go with Lucina then?”

Chrom nods. “All right, but I reserve the right to act according to my judgment should any suspicion or danger arise. Please contact Father Matthew and let him know that he'll have extra guests.” 

Libra gathers the sheets across the table and tucks them neatly into the heavy book in front of him. “Of course.”

They bid each other goodbye in front of the church with Libra gently reminding Lucina to consider what he said as counsel, not as an order. Chrom shoots them a curious glance as he and Lucina get into Robin's car and begin their drive back home after she accepted his offer of a ride.

When the church is no longer in sight, he asks, “What was that about?”

Lucina's silent for a moment. “I was...dating—” 

The wheel jerks in Chrom's hands, and he nearly drives them into a tree. “What?! Who?”

Lucina stares at his face, panic at the edge of his expression. They probably should not be in a moving car for this. “I can tell you more when we're at home when we ask Mother about the trip to Valm.”

Her father doesn't say anything for the rest of the ride, merely accelerating at a questionable amount above the speed limit until both of them are home, and he immediately pulls Robin and Lucina into a meeting around the kitchen table.

His face darkens. “Which boy?”

Lucina exchanges glances with her mother. “Before we discuss that, do you want to share what we learned at the church today?”

Robin arches an eyebrow in interest, and Chrom quickly recaps the events and information. He seems reluctant to leave the topic of Lucina's dating life. 

Her mother taps her fingers along the table. “Interesting. So, you think this priest in Valm would be able to advise you further?”

“So, Libra says, but I have my doubts. What if it's a trap, and he's working for the Grimleal?”

“What if it's not, and he has invaluable information that could help us resolve the Grimleal matter once and for all?” Robin counters. “As for Lucina coming, it wouldn't be a bad idea. She's not exactly safe here with all the tension in the sheriff's department.”

“Point taken. Still, to have her come if it's something more devious...”

“Then, you'll make the right call and take action to make sure she'll get out.” Robin strokes the side of his face tenderly. “If there's any man in town she would be safe with anywhere, it'd be you.” 

Chrom's eyes soften. He takes her hand and kisses her palm. “I'm glad you trust me so.” 

“Always, Chrom. You've given me no reason to doubt you.” 

Lucina watches in awe at the way her parents gaze at each other and hopes that one day she'll have a love like that too. 

Her father turns to Lucina. “Now, that matter is out of the way, could you share what you talked with Father Libra about? About the boy you've been seeing.” He grunts at Robin's jab at his ribs. “If you feel comfortable doing so.”

“It's not a boy.” Lucina glances at her mother who nods encouragingly after seeing confusion pinch her father's face. “I'm...I was seeing Severa Faulkner. Romantically.” She squirms. “It's been nearly two months now.” 

“WHAT? I mean...” He hides half of his face with one hand and tries to gamely recover. “What?”

Lucina's taken back. “I was dating the Faulkners' daughter. Is...is that a problem?” 

Chrom swallows. He seems to be having difficulty with the motion. “Not at all. What do you mean by you were dating her?”

“She...she broke up with me. I think. What her father said to me suggested something completely different, and I need to reflect on what to do.”

Her father nods stiffly. “I see.” He gets up with his shoulders slumped and turns towards the back door. “I'm sorry, ladies, but I need to get some fresh air before we can continue this discussion.”

Lucina's throat clenches as she watches him walk away. “Is Father disappointed in me?”

Robin shakes her head. “That's not it, Lucina. It's just that he was looking forward to warning any boys you might date about seeing you. He even had a scenario prepared that included intimidation with his sheriff uniform and one that involves digging a grave in the mountains somewhere.”

“Oh. Did...did Father not want me to date?”

“Well, not until your thirties anyway.” Her mother pauses. “I had to talk him out of using a shotgun once though.” 

Lucina grabs onto her mother's forearm. “Please don't let Father scare away Severa with a shotgun.” 

“Severa's tough. She'll—” Robin hesitates. “—okay, that might do it.” 

“Mother, please.”

Robin kisses Lucina's cheek. “Give him some time to process everything. He loves you anyway. He's just dealing with letting go of a small dream right now.” She looks at Lucina with a thoughtful expression. “So, what did you learn from Severa's father?”

Lucina relays her meeting with the priest while Robin makes them tea. At the end of her story, Robin fiddles with her mug with a faraway look in her eyes. “It's not something I share with people, but I may understand what Severa's going through. Has gone through.” She sighs, “I've told you that your Aunt Aversa and I were adopted, correct?” 

When Lucina nods, she continues. “What I did not tell you is that prior to being adopted, I spent many years in foster care.” She stares at the unmoving liquid in her drink. Her voice is quiet. “Not all of them pleasant.” 

Lucina squeezes her mother's forearm. “You never told Morgan or I this.”

“There was nothing worth telling. Until now.” Robin takes a breath. “I don't remember being loved, respected, accepted, or heard growing up, though I decided that it didn't matter. Not until I ended up at your grandparents' place with your aunt.” 

Robin gazes over somewhere Lucina's face. “I spent years wondering why my parents left me in the foster care system, and, at some point, I had thought that I was just a horrible daughter and that no mother could ever love me. Like Severa's father, it took me years to realize that it was never me, that I wasn't responsible for other people's actions. The only person whose actions I could claim full responsibility for was myself and no one else.

“But it also took years to learn how to let good people in, like your father. He was the first person to never push me, never expect anything of me that I couldn't give, and he had the patience to rival Libra back then in waiting for me to reach out to him first.”

Lucina frowns in disbelief. “Father?”

Her mother chuckles. “It's amazing what love can help you accomplish.” Robin smiles and gets up. “It's just another perspective to consider, and I hope you've gotten enough information to make an informed decision.” She hugs Lucina briefly. “I'll talk to your father about the whole dating thing. You just think about what you need to do.” 

—

When everyone has gone to bed, Lucina sits up in hers and stares out her window. There's a knock on her door, and her father enters, looking concerned and slightly ashamed. “Sorry to disturb you, but can we talk?” At Lucina's nod, he crosses the space between him and sits on Lucina's bed, ruffling his hair. “Were you about to sleep?”

Lucina shakes her head. “I was thinking about—” She glances at her father. “—what to do with Severa.”

Her father nods and stares at his hands. “I handled that like an idiot.” 

“You...could have taken it better.” 

He turns to her, sighing. “Lucina, my first responsibility is to love you and protect you from things that may hurt you, one of which should never be me.” He rests his hands on her shoulders and gives her a light squeeze. “No matter how old we both get, you're my little girl, my angel. I would do anything for you. I would die for you. And if I were to watch you start to build love and a life with someone, I want that person to have the same devotion to you that I would have. I want that person to adore you.” He lets go and sit back, looking a little older but also relieved. “It doesn't matter to me whom you love as long as they are as good of a person as you are.” 

Lucina blinks, startled to feel wetness in her eyes. “Father...” 

“That being said, if you and Severa get back together, I am going to give her a talk about how I expect her to treat you from here on.”

Lucina places a hand on her father's forearm. “No shotguns, please.”

Chrom's face twitches. He deflects. “Have you decided on what to say to her?”

She hesitates, and when nothing comes out, her father's face softens. “I don't know the whole story with what's going with Severa, but I do know that sometimes it's enough to touch a heart by reaching out and saying to them, 'I know what you're going through. You're not alone anymore.'” 

Lucina glances down, feeling the warmth of her father's gaze. “I don't know if what I'm going to do is the right thing.”

He smiles at her. “That's normal. You won't always know. All you can do is trust your instinct and your heart, and as long as your decision is in line with them, you'll, at least, always be true to yourself.”

He kisses her goodnight, and leaves Lucina in the quiet of her room to reflect upon the day and the choices before her. She makes her decision and goes to sleep.

—

Lucina doesn't see Severa for several days. No one does. Even Noire chews her lip in worry and stares out the window, typing rapid messages on her phone with an almost frantic expression on her face.

If Lucina is honest, she's not surprised, but she goes through her days anyway, attending all of her classes and heading to the library to study at lunch time as she always did with Severa. She avoids her phone, deletes Severa's old messages, and spends as much time with other people as she can. On the fourth day, she's in the middle of a text on how lightning forms in the atmosphere when she hears a shuffle on her left, and she looks over. Something in her chest squeezes until she can't breathe, and Lucina can't figure out what she's feeling.

Severa approaches her, stopping a couple of feet away. Dark circles ring the underside of her eyes, and there's a residual redness to them that doesn't want to leave. Her mouth draws down in an unhappy line, and there's something to the slump of her shoulders that makes Lucina hurt for her. She looks like she spent the last few days looking as miserable as Lucina felt. “This is the only place in school that's remotely quiet.” She hesitates. “Is it okay if I sit near you?”

Lucina's throat closes on her. She gestures to the empty seat beside her, and Severa brushes by her to slip into it. She doesn't look at Lucina and seems to have trouble lifting her eyes. The distance between them feels hot, like the careless caress of a scorching breeze. An ache swells in Lucina's bones, one that seems to resonate through her body from her chest. She ventures, softly, “How are you doing?”

Severa looks at her like it's a dumb question, but even her glare lacks its usual sharpness. “...fine. How have you been doing?”

Lucina stares at her hands folded in front of her, feeling her words cowering at the back of her throat. “I'm good.” Something spasms in her stomach. “I...I needed to talk to you.”

Severa looks away. “I know. I'm sorry. I'm...I'm here now to listen at least.”

Lucina lets out a tense breath, feeling something easing in her chest. “Thank you. I have something to give you before we start.” She reaches into her bag and pulls out the sketchbook. “Here, I think this is yours.” 

Severa stares at her. When she's snapped out of her shock, she snatches the book away and clutches it to her chest. “Where did you get this? Did you—” Her voice rings high as Severa sputters, spots of fury and horror darkening her cheeks.

“Someone gave it to me. They told me that it had been discarded.”

Severa doesn't respond for a long time. At last, she places the sketchbook on the table and turns to face Lucina. “I'm not even going to ask if you've read it. I'm...” She grimaces, her face flushing. “I'm not a stalker if that's what you're thinking.”

“That's hardly what I'm thinking at all.”

“Oh? Then, maybe you're thinking of how much better off you are without me. How furious you are with me, how much I've—” Severa drops her voice until it's almost inaudible. “—I've hurt you.” 

“I'm thinking none of those things, but if you'd let me, I'd like to speak my heart.” 

Severa flinches, dropping her eyes. “Go ahead. I deserve it.” 

Lucina takes a breath to still her shaking fingers. She slowly closes the distance between them and cups Severa's face gently. Her heartbeat pauses for such a long moment that Lucina almost thought it had stopped. “I will never harm you or leave you alone of my own volition.” 

She spots Severa's confusion growing on her face, but continues on anyway. “I will never abandon you or tell you that you should feel bad for the way you're handling things. I will never wish you were someone else, and I will never see you as less than my equal in all things. I haven't contacted you because I know you need your space to heal, and I will always be here, no matter how far you run away. I will never push you harder than you can go, and I will always accept you, even at times when you can't accept yourself. All that I ask in return is that you give me a chance to earn your trust and faith in me that I'm someone who can keep their word.” 

“You don't need to prove yourself on that.” Severa wipes at her eyes, trying to brush away Lucina's hand. She tries to pull away, but Lucina doesn't let her. “You idiot, what are you doing? I'm trying to protect you. Oh my gods, Lucina. We're near the windows. Someone could look in at any moment.”

“Please let me finish. Otherwise, I may lose the courage to do so,” Lucina asks, softly. She swallows when Severa doesn't say anything but stares at her with wide eyes. “I know you are trying to protect me. I hope it's not too much of me to ask to let me protect you in turn, especially from yourself, your doubts, your fears—the thoughts that haunt you and makes you wonder if you'll ever be worthy of love or forgiveness.” She sees Severa's flinch and softens her tone. “Keeping me in the dark isn't protecting me. It's shielding yourself from the truth that I'm already involved, and it's not your fault. It's just how things happen, how the story goes. 

“I care about you, and you don't have to be alone anymore.” Lucina smiles, letting go and sitting back in her seat. “You don't need to answer right now, but my heart is yours as long as you will have it and when you're ready to accept it,” she sighs, feeling like binds have loosen around her chest, and she can finally breathe. Severa doesn't answer, and Lucina doesn't expect her to. She turns away to pull her textbook closer when some instinct tells her to look back. When she does, Severa kisses her. 

Lucina can't figure out what's happening, and when she does, she's so shocked that she forgets to reciprocate, leaning back until her back slaps against her chair. Severa takes advantage of her surprise by straddling Lucina's lap, her hands coming up to caress the stunned girl's jaw and cheeks. The heat from the front of Severa's hips burns through to Lucina's belly, and Severa moans slightly, which jolts the other girl from her stupor. 

Lucina wraps her arms around the other girl's waist, tilting her head to allow the redhead to deepen the kiss, which she does quite greedily if the way she pushes into her is any indication. Severa makes this amazing noise in her throat while a current runs down from Lucina's lips to between her legs. She groans into Severa's mouth and Lucina runs her fingers through fine red hair, down the back of her neck before resting her hands between the Severa's shoulder blades and pulling her closer. Severa makes a startled noise when Lucina drags her fingers down the curve of her back, desire reverberating through her skin and love blossoming in her heart. Lucina would die for Severa in this moment.

Severa ends the kiss by breaking away, gasping. She leans forward to rest her forehead against Lucina's, heaving and swearing at herself. “Gods, I'm so stupid. I'm sorry,” she whispers, and the straddled girl is perplexed until she notices that Severa is crying. “I'm sorry for everything. For me.” 

Lucina's concerned. And aroused. And confused. “Severa—”

The keening girl collapses into Lucina. “I'm sorry that I'm such a mess, I'm sorry that I tried to break your heart and broke my own instead, I'm sorry that you got saddled with someone like me, because you deserve so much better—”

“I do deserve you, but you just don't see it yet.” Lucina gathers her arm gently around Severa's shoulders, feeling trembling beneath her touch. “And I don't know when you will, but I'll be here until you do. You're safe here with me, Severa. I won't hurt you or leave you. I won't judge you or condemn you. If you need time, then I will wait for however long it takes for you to let yourself be loved. I'm by your side, Severa, as I hope you'll be by mine.” 

Severa buries her face in the crook between Lucina's neck and shoulder. She sniffs. “Gods, it sounds like you're proposing to me.” 

“If that's what it takes to make you understand that I'm serious.” 

Severa sighs and pulls back. She gazes at Lucina for a long while, reaching up until her palms cups the taller girl's face, her thumbs tracing the curve of Lucina's ears slowly. Lucina's ears heat at Severa's touch, the fire extending across her face at the expression on Severa's. “If you are—serious, I mean, not—” Severa flushes. “—whatever...then, yeah. I'd want to try again with you. Honestly, this time.” 

They watch each other for a minute with Severa stroking Lucina's ears, and Lucina unable to articulate why this makes her so ridiculously happy. At last, Severa snorts softly. “You know, my mother straight-up told me that I was an idiot for breaking up with you. Noire sort of implied the same.” She gazes at Lucina with that look that makes the taller girl flush with adoration, her heartbeat spiralling high in her chest. “And I don't disagree with them. Seriously, your only flaw is that you're willing to put up with me.”

Lucina points out, “I don't see that as a flaw at all.” 

Severa just smiles. 

They stay like that for long enough that Lucina's legs start to go numb when Severa finally pulls away. She glances between them and flushes. “Gods, I'm such a cretin. I'm practically seducing you in the library.”

...Lucina doesn't really have a problem with that. “Does the physical contact make you uncomfortable?”

Severa scoffs, “Gods, no.” She glances around them before leaning in to whisper at Lucina's ear, her breath hot like the kiss of the desert wind. “When you came over last week, do you really believe that I wasn't thinking about having you on my bed?”

The redhead smiles against her skin as Severa kisses her ear and backs away while Lucina's thinking about having her on the sturdy table behind her. The impulse dies away when the girls hear something from the windows across from them, and turn in time to see a red-faced Yarne fleeing from the windows, yelping and bolting towards the main building.

Severa swears. “The entire school will know before lunch is over.”

Lucina gazes at her hands on Severa's hips. The top of her pants have slipped a little, and there's an odd mark cresting the top of her left hip bone. It looks like a birthmark. “Maybe it's not such a bad thing. I'm not that good at hiding our relationship, and, frankly, I tire of it.” 

“I do too.” Severa glances to the side. A flush courses across her cheeks, and she grins. “And to be honest, I kind of like being on top of you.” 

Lucina's mouth goes dry. She manages a jerky nod and clenches her hands on the chair to avoid any inappropriate motions—no matter how much she wants to make them—as Severa pushes herself off of her. Taking a breath, Lucina stands, watching Severa packing her books away, her sketchbook going in first before she begins to clear away her things as well. When they finish, they stare at each other, red-faced and grinning in turns. 

When it's clear that Lucina's not going to move, the redhead takes her hand, leading her out of the library while Lucina makes a happy noise at the touch. Severa glances back once the doors break into sunlight, and Lucina's brain stutters, her breath stopping in her chest from Severa's expression, golden light across her face like an illusive dream flickering into reality before darting away.

Severa looks like a girl in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We did it, friends! Over 85,000 words later, and we have our first kiss! Okay, romance complete. Everyone, go home.
> 
> Random character fact: Severa's favourite poem would be Elizabeth Barrett Browning's "How Do I Love Thee?", but she'll deny it to her dying breath.


	19. Goodbye, Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa's called down to the sheriff's department, and the day take a strange turn after she later says goodbye to Lucina and finds herself being stalked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.

Severa wonders why she's sitting in the sheriff's office the day after she makes up with Lucina.

Her mother receives a call in the morning that draws her brows together in a befuddled expression as the family is sitting down for breakfast. She tells Severa that Chrom specifically requested to speak to her, and escorts her through the sheriff's department—the hostile glares they get from half of the people they cross doing nothing to soothe Severa's nerves—and Cordelia sits her in front of his desk. The assistant sheriff exchanges confused glances with her daughter before closing the door while Severa sends Lucina a somewhat panicked message.

A large window is on Severa's right side, which opens up to a sky that is a bizarre orange colour—a shade that looks a warning is painted above them. In front of her, the sheriff's desk is surprisingly neat with the paperwork arranged in clean piles, which Severa suspects is the work of the undersheriff if the clutter on the shelf behind the desk is any indication of the sheriff's usual habits. There are odd knickknacks on it such as an empty seashell and cards scrawled in a child's handwriting. Pictures plaster the wall above it of him and his family from Robin holding two laughing children—looking exhausted but happy—to pictures of the family wearing horrid sweaters and grinning as they open up presents. Severa catches a glimpse of one that shows Lucina on the beach in a red bikini, laughing at Morgan who's splashing her with a huge wave of water as tiny rivulets run down her skin. 

Severa stares. Why the heck does the sheriff think that picture is appropriate to post at work, and, holy crap, can she take it?

Also, there's a polished shotgun sitting on the sheriff's desk, which isn't the least bit ominous in the slightest.

The door opens behind her, and the sheriff steps in, taking off his hat and smiling at her. “I apologize for the slight delay. My undersheriff had some immediate concerns that I had to address.” He locks the door and walks around to sit at his desk. The moment he sits down, the smile drops off of his face. He clears his throat. “I heard that you're dating my daughter.”

Severa stiffens. “From who?”

“From Lucina herself.”

Oh, gods. 

Lucina's killed her.

He continues on, “So I've decided to set some boundaries while you are.” The sheriff lifts his shotgun from his desk and sighs. “My duty as her father demands that I give you this talk—”

Why? In case she gets Lucina pregnant?

“—but that's not really why I called you down. Well, it's not the only reason.” He carefully places the shotgun on a table behind him before handing her a file, peppered with sticky notes and writing in a blue ink. “I need you to look at these papers, which I had your father photocopy.”

Severa glances at him quizzically before she opens the file, flipping through drawings of tomes, staves, and weapons. She glances past a page of a red book with golden circles. “What does this have to do with m—” 

She lands on a page titled the Heart of Grima, and she stares at the drawing, feeling the urge to retch rising in her chest. “What is this?”

The sheriff's eyes study her, unreadable. “That's the book you found, isn't it? The one that burned Owain?”

Severa drops the file onto the sheriff's desk. Her voice comes out high. “This is sick. Why are you showing me this?”

“I may need to know where it is. I'm heading to Valm today with your father and Lucina, and I have sources that state the Grimleal may make their movements sometime soon.”

“From who?”

The sheriff considers her for a long time. “I can tell you, but I need your word that nothing I tell you will leave this room. And I will swear the same unless it is absolutely imperative to do so to preserve peace and life. Do you agree to these terms?” At Severa's expression, he adds, “This isn't an ultimatum. You can say no and walk out that door, but I need your help. I need to know where the book might be now if it comes to a race between us and the Grimleal to find it.”

Gods. Yeah, this is totally no pressure.

Severa mutters, “I think I'd preferred it if you continued threatening me about dating your daughter.”

“Not exactly threaten, per say, but I do want to have that talk with you as well.” He peers at her. “For the record, if you ever break Lucina's heart by deliberately hurting her, you'll—”

“Be dealing with you?” And his shiny shotgun?

He shakes his head. “You'll answer to Lucina first.” He leans forward and smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes. “And when she's through with you, then you get to see me. Understood?” 

Severa swallows. “Understood.” 

She briefly reconsiders dating Lucina.

The sheriff sits up, sighing. “Now, that we're on clear terms about that, we'll need to talk about confidentiality regarding sensitive information.” He looks at her, and Severa sits a little taller. “I swear on my end that I will not release the information unless it is required by law, common sense, or if in the event that it may stop the Grimleal themselves. Do you swear the same for everything I'm about to tell you?”

Severa hesitates. “I don't really have a choice, do I?”

He gives her a strange look. "Of course, you do. You have one for every action you take. Whether you want to bear the consequences of the choices you make is another matter. " 

"All right, I get it. I don't need a life lecture right now. Thanks," Severa grumbles. "Fine, I swear the same too." 

"Good." He sits back. "I have a source from the Emblem who has arrived some weeks ago in town and has been involved in monitoring suspicious activity. From what they report, there is a lot of Grimleal movement towards the town, and something big is planned for Ylisse sometime soon. I just don't know the exact details of what."

Great, vague conjecture. How useful. "Wait, the Emblem? Aren't they just a bunch of—" 

"Paper pushers?" The sheriff smiles. "I used to think that way as well before I met the actual heart of the Emblem during the war—the top-level agents named after the mythical gemstones of the Fire Emblem themselves. They exist, Severa."

"...uh-huh. Anyway, this source of yours?"

"A highly trained agent under Gules. You probably have even already met him, but due to security reasons, I can't disclose his name. You don't need to know more information than that regarding that matter." The sheriff frowns as he opens a drawer beside him and pulls out what looks like an old map. "To make it easier to locate the book, could you point out the location of where you hid it?"

Severa hesitates. At her silence, the sheriff's expression softens and his shoulders relax. “I know you're scared, and I know that it's easy to blame yourself for what happened with Owain. I'm not going to ask for your trust, because I know I need to earn it. All I can say to encourage you to believe my words are true is that if you trust me with this information, I will do everything in my power to help you against the Grimleal. No less for the girl who captured my daughter's heart.”

Ugh, Severa sees where Lucina gets her corniness from. “Fine. It's not like I had a great plan for figuring this out myself.” She turns away, and despite herself, there's something inside her that lightens like she's letting out a quiet breath of relief. Chrom hands her the map, and she takes it onto her lap.

Severa peers at the lines indicating roads and paths, her finger tracing a meandering path at the forests surround Ylissetol. She doesn't know exactly where the rock formation is, but she knows she can retrace the route Owain took her along if she walks there herself. After a moment of thought, she says, “When you come back from Valm, I'll have to lead you there myself. I don't know where it is on this map.”

Lucina's father gazes at her, steady and trusting. “All right. I'll hold you to your word.” He sits back, taking the map from her. “Do you have any questions for me? Otherwise, I think I've discussed everything I need to say.”

Severa pauses as she gets up. “What was the shotgun for?”

“Hmmm?” Chrom looks at the firearm with a twitch of regret. “Some dreams, however small, are hard to let go of.”

Okay, not really an answer. “Can I leave now, please?”

The sheriff nods, and Severa slips out the door. She bumps into the undersheriff outside of Chrom's office, nearly smashing her nose into his chest. 

"Careful." Frederick William pushes her back. His eyes roam her face before they narrow, highlighting the gauntness of his face. “Cordelia's daughter.” 

“Severa,” she snaps before realizing to whom she's speaking. “I mean, my name is Severa.”

“You were my son's friend before.” Frederick doesn't smile. Severa doesn't recall the last time she saw him do so. “He was quite fond of you.” 

“He—” Severa turns away, silent for a long time. “I'm sorry about what happened to him. It was my f—”

“It was the result of someone choosing to do evil. No other reason exists.” Frederick's tone is sharp, lashing, and Severa flinches as it cuts into her. The undersheriff must have noticed, because he shifts and softens his tone. Somewhat. “I don't hold anyone accountable, save for the man who chose to take Owain from me. And mark my words,” Frederick leans down towards her, his eyes as hard as the gun on his hip, "if I ever find him, he will not live to see his own trial." 

He moves away from her and pushes open the sheriff's door. “Sir, I think it would be a good idea to have someone escort her from the premises for safety reasons. Her mother's reputation in the department isn't on her side.”

Chrom appears in the doorway, frowning. “Where's Cordelia?”

“Out to follow up with your leads and do an interview with the owner of The Witch's Hut as you requested.” 

“Oh. Dammit.” The sheriff turns and calls to a woman with short red hair sitting at her desk not too far from his office. “Sully, can you take Severa to the exit?

The officer snorts and throws down her pen. “About time I did something useful. All this paperwork is killing me.” 

Severa recognizes the woman as Kjelle's mother with those imposing shoulders her daughter inherited. She introduces herself as Lieutenant Greenheart and gestures for the young girl to follow. The deputy leads Severa through the maze of desks and officers, some of which give her furious stares as if begging for a chance to catch Severa alone in dark alley by herself. Severa's neighbour destroys the effect when he catches sight of her and waves like an idiot as he jogs over to them.

“Yo! Teach's favourite student is here!”

Sully scoffs. “We're in the middle of something here.” 

“No problem! The Vaike just wants to check in real quickly with some news he's heard.” His stupid grin drops off of his face, and his voice goes low. “I haven't seen Captain Cervantes around. Have you?”

Lieutenant Greenheart eyes Severa before shaking her head and giving Vaike a stern look. "No. We can talk about this later."

Vaike ignores her. “I don't know know where he's at, but I don't like it. He lives near the undersheriff's house, right? Maybe we can—”

Sully's voice cuts him off. “Sergeant, this is not the time to talk about this.” 

“All right, but we gotta talk about this sometime today.” Vaike glances at Severa, who's been leaning into their conversation. He grins at her. “By the way, I hear that ya got a soft spot for the ladies and—”

No.

She is not having this conversation with him.

“Leave her alone, Vaike. You live next to her. You can harass her later.” Sully swivels between the two of them and places her hands on Severa's shoulders, leading her to the exit and ignoring his protests. “By the way, that's something I gotta ask you about too.”

Severa groans. Is there seriously nothing more interesting than the dating life of two high school students? “There's nothing to say about it. I'm seeing Lucina, and, for whatever reason, she wants to see me too.” She goes quiet. “I'm still not sure why though, considering my reputation around town.” 

Kjelle's mother scratches at her jaw. “Well, I've been around Lucina since she was a kid. She's got great judgment. If she sees good in you, then, hell, I do too. And for the record, I never believed any of those rumours everyone was saying about you.” She opens to the door to the sight of a pacing Lucina at the bottom of the stairs leading to the sheriff's department. “Speaking of which, look who we have here.”

Lucina flushes slightly. “Aunt Sully. I was just—”

“Waiting for your girl. I get it.” Lieutenant Greenheart pushes Severa forward. “Never let it be said that I stood in the way of young love,” she chortles as she closes the door behind Severa while the latter feels her face burn as brightly as Lucina's does.

Severa stands awkwardly at the top of the steps with Lucina unable to meet her eyes. “So, you got my text?”

“That my father brought you down here?” Lucina bites her lip and takes a step up before pausing, her breaths coming out in tiny huffs. “I came over as quickly as I could. Did he—”

“With a shotgun.”

Lucina looks terrified. “Severa, please. He doesn't mean—”

Severa cuts her off with a wave. “Relax. It was relatively mild.” Other than giving her a heart attack, but she supposes that getting to date Lucina is worth the occasional cardiac arrest. “We're on clear terms now.”

Lucina hesitates, looking as if she wants to press the matter. She doesn't say anything further, instead glancing up the stairs before holding out her hand as if to escort her down. Severa rolls her eyes and begins to make her way down herself when she stops, spotting an odd, tremulous vulnerability in Lucina's eyes.

Severa sighs, glancing around her before taking Lucina's hand, pulling it towards her. The taller girl's smile slips away, her brows furrowing in puzzlement, only to shoot up in surprise when the redhead gently kisses the palm of her outstretched hand. Severa glances up, nervous that she's made an idiot out of herself when she spots a strange look on Lucina's face like she would have dragged Severa over to her father's church and married her on the spot. "You okay?"

Lucina clears her throat, a flush rising on her cheeks. "Yeah, I'm fine. We just didn't get a chance to talk much yesterday.”

Severa was right about how fast the news would spread about them. By mid afternoon, she was snarling at her idiotic classmates who kept asking them questions in disbelief while a line of students came up to Lucina to inquire about the rumours that she was caught in the library making out with the school delinquent. What Severa didn't anticipate was how quickly the news spread to the adults and, consequently, to the rest of the town. Having Cynthia's dad stop by the school and tease her every step of the way to her car was not on her bucket list of things to experience before she died. 

Lucina's friend Kjelle had taken a look at Severa, rolled her eyes, and proclaimed her the equivalent of an emotional cactus. She supported them anyway. Inigo smiles at them, and winks at Severa who nearly wants to slap him. Brady wasn't that surprised and actually smirked at her when she saw him, earning him an elbow to the ribs. Neither was Noire or Cynthia, the latter muttering something that sounded like, “Finally.” 

In the end, none of the annoyances compared to the expression on Lucina's face when she gazes at Severa at the end of the school day. The redhead would climb over three mountains just to see Lucina look that happy again.

Lucina watches her as Severa descends the stairs, an awe in her face that the redhead doesn't get. When Severa finally stands in front of her, there's something soft in Lucina's expression that has the redhead shifting, stepping away. Lucina gives her space and doesn't follow.

Severa looks up and stares at the sky, a thunderstorm from the night before rendering everything a shade of orange that disturbs the hair on her skin. It darkens to an angry red near the sun, a searing scar that glares them at them, as if holding them at fault for something they didn't know about. Even worse than that, the morning was strangely cold. There's a promise of frost in the air that makes Severa shiver while Lucina wears a heavy scarf of red and gold. It feels like the world's gone sideways. It feels like standing in the aftermath of an apocalypse.

“Isn't that sky just creepy?” Severa pulls her jacket closer to her.

Lucina peers upwards. “I agree. It's like this unsettling feeling that something is ending.” 

“Geez, that sounds morbid.”

Lucina doesn't reply, merely stare into that unnatural, sickly colour with her brows furrowed. She looks uneasy. “Something is going to happen.” 

“Yeah, we're going to freeze to death if we don't get inside somewhere.” Severa reaches out to slip her hand into the warmth of Lucina's. “Do you want to eat lunch at Donnie's?"

When Lucina agrees, Severa leads her to her car and drives them over to the diner. When they exit the car, Severa takes a hold of Lucina's hand again and pulls her inside. The passing owner takes a look at their clasped hands and begins to whistle.

He grins. "I knew it! Congratulations, you two. Luci, you lady-killer, you."

“Donnie, please.”

“I get it. You want some space to yourself with your girl. I was young once.” 

Lucina flushes, and Severa glances at her sidelong before changing the topic. “Hey, so what made you want to name this diner after yourself? Also, can we get a table?”

“It was the only name I could think of,” Donnie pouts. "I wanted to call this fine establishment McDonnel's after my grandpappy, but some lout in Valm had already copyrighted the name." He walks away grumbling about that sore point after showing the two to a booth in the corner of the diner. 

They slide into the booth, sitting side by side this time around. Lucina gazes at her, and Severa's struck by how long and pretty her lashes are. Gods, she's a total dork. “I've arranged to go to Valm with our fathers after lunch today.”

“Yeah, you mentioned that yesterday after school.”

“I was going to bring it up when I first saw you, but—” Lucina's cheeks are tinged with pink. “—we got distracted.” 

That's one way of putting it. 

Lucina glances at her. She reaches between them and tucks a strand of hair behind Severa's ear. “Was that your first kiss?”

“No.” Severa spots Lucina stiffening. “What's wrong?”

“Who did you kiss before?”

“Does it matter?”

Yes, if the tightening of Lucina's jaw is any indication. 

Severa sighs, “Look, it was Noire. We were 12 and just came out of the theatre after watching one of those horrid Dusklight movies, and wanted to try it out. I enjoyed it. She didn't. You can stop being jealous now.” 

Lucina shifts. “I'm—I'm not.” 

“Please, you have a streak as wide as my neighbour's mouth.” A thought hits her. “Wait, was that your first?”

Lucina doesn't say anything, which is answer enough. Severa smirks, leaning towards her as Lucina's eyes dart down, her breathing growing shallow. “It didn't lead anywhere or mean anything. Besides, I like it when the other person enjoys it too, which you clearly do.” She grins at the flustered expression on the other girl's face. "You do very much so." 

Lucina takes a breath and meets Severa's eyes, something bright and defiant in them. “I don't think it's such a bad thing for me to like kissing my girlfriend.”

Severa jumps, banging her leg against the underside of the table. She makes an undignified noise that makes her want to slap herself. “Y-yeah, you....yeah.” 

Lucina watches her carefully before reaching out a hand to squeeze Severa's. “Are you not?” she asks, quietly. She looks hopeful. She also looks sad.

Severa hisses and looks away, fire racing into every visible space of skin on her face. Her heartbeat vaults into her throat. “I'm...”

“You don't need to use the word if you're not ready. I consider myself yours even if you don't consider yourself mine.” 

“It's not that!” Severa sucks in a breath and raises her gaze to meet Lucina's. Something twists in her stomach at the look in Lucina's eyes, like something delicate and fragile about to break. “Stop looking at me like that! It's just...ugh!" She leans in close enough that she could hear the catch of the startled girl's breath. "You're gorgeous, you're extremely smart, and it's taking me some time to understand that you want to date me for some reason."

Lucina reaches out to cradle Severa's face. "You have no idea how beautiful you are—inside and out." She closes her eyes and leans in to nuzzle Severa's nose. The redhead lets out an undignified squeak. "I won't push you to use that term until you're ready." 

“I still don't get what you see in me,” Severa grumbles when Lucina opens her eyes, and the look in them knocks the rest of her gripe out of her mouth.

“When I feel alone, I can reach out to you, and it feels like you bring me home every time.”

Severa's throat closes on her. She hadn't expected that Lucina, who's praised and revered by everyone, would ever feel lonely. “Hey, I'm right here if you ever need someone to just be there.” 

Lucina's eyes remind her of an inferno breaking into light. “That, Severa, is why I like you so much.”

They stare at each other until two glasses slam down into the table beside them, sloshing water over their rims. Severa instinctively swivels around, snarling, as she positions her body between the source of the sound and Lucina. She feels like an idiot when she spots Yarne's mother waiting with her notepad in her hand, and her face burns at the waitress' knowing look.

Panne glances down at her pad. There's a smirk waiting at the corner of her lips. “All right, lovebirds. What will it be?”

The girls quickly order if only to make her go away, and Severa is determinedly not making eye contact after that display of overprotectiveness. Lucina's not making this easy if the embarrassed grin and the flush across her cheeks mean anything. They sit in silence with Lucina sneaking her hand underneath the table to lace her fingers between Severa's while the redhead sighs and brings their hands closer together. Lucina doesn't try to force a conversation, and Severa appreciates that she knows when to give her space. 

When their meals arrive, the quiet breaks into easy chatter, and Severa has to shake Lucina's hand off to eat since the girl refuses to let go. She gives Severa something that almost looks like a pout if Lucina wasn't so damn dignified all the time. 

When they've nearly finished eating, Lucina glances at her with an inquisitive raise of her brows.

“Yes?”

“Why were you so distant before?”

Severa sighs and glances around. When she sees no one, she huffs. “I was thinking of finding some evidence of forgery by Cervantes.” She sinks into her seat. “It may have involved some not-so-legal means.”

“Like?”

Severa mumbles something that vaguely sounds like, “breaking and entering.”

Lucina stares at her. “That's... not the most thought-out plan you've put together.”

“I think what you mean is that it was a stupid idea, and I agree, thank you very much.” Severa's tone is tight. “And yeah, I'm not the queen of strategic plans, all right? I think that title belongs to your mother.” 

“Severa, I'm not criticizing you personally, but you have to admit that a plan that involves illegal means would make any observer uneasy.” 

“Who are you? Laurent?” Severa snorts. “I get it. Dumb idea. I've ditched it. Can we please move on?”

Lucina hesitates. “There's one thing that I've been meaning to ask you. When we fought last week, what did you mean that it would have meant more if I had cared when it mattered?”

Oh, gods. Every single word Severa said is coming back to haunt her. 

"It's stupid."

“It matters to me if I've unintentionally hurt your feelings.” 

“Oh my gods. Can you let me be mad at you without being so gracious all the time?” 

“So, you were upset with me.”

Goddammit, Lucina. 

“Fine, I was!” Severa heaves an aggravated sigh. “It was when the soccer team was cancelled, and you went off arguing with my mom. I wondered if...you even need me at all. You didn't even notice that I was gone.”

Lucina lets out a breath. “I'm so sorry. I was so preoccupied with what had happened with the soccer team that I didn't even notice how you were feeling.” 

Severa turns her face away. “Yeah, well. I should have said something about it instead of worrying and stewing about it. I'm sorry too.” 

Lucina watches her carefully. “Are you still upset about it?”

“No, it's something dumb that I shouldn't have worried over.”

“Your feelings are never something inconsequential to me.” 

Severa has nothing to say to that, because, dear gods, Lucina says the absolutely perfect thing every single time. They finish their meal, pay for lunch, and drive back to Lucina's house where the sheriff waits with Severa's father beside the former's car. The two men greet their daughters before leaving a little ways towards the street to give the girls some privacy.

Lucina stands in front of the trunk of the car, face-to-face with Severa. She seems like she has so much to say but no time to do so. “Promise me you'll be careful.”

Severa blinks. “Umm...hello? You're the one practically driving to the middle of a war zone. If anyone needs to be cautious, it's you.” 

“Yes, but—” Lucina hesitates.

“I have a way of getting into trouble.”

“That's not what I was going to say,” Lucina quickly says. Severa gives her a look, and she amends herself. “Perhaps, I may have meant something along those lines.” 

“Look, I appreciate the concern, but I think you're getting paranoid.”

“No, it's not that. I—” Lucina takes a breath. “I have dreams of you at times. They're often my best nights of sleep.”

Severa feels her ears burn. “Uh...Lucina. Our dads are right there, so—”

“But at the end of every dream, you always leave.” Lucina frowns. “And last night felt ominous when you did.” 

“You... probably should take it up with my dream self. I can't do anything about that.” 

“That's not it, Severa. I just—” Lucina grasps her hands, frustration crossing her face as she stumbles for words at the tip of her tongue. It's a different experience to see Lucina so inarticulate when it's usually Severa who's the tongue-tied mess. “Please watch yourself. That's all I ask.”

A sarcastic remark dies away in her throat when Severa sees the look in Lucina's eyes. She sighs, “All right, fine. I'm not going to throw myself into massive danger today.”

“Promise?”

“I'm not as fantastic at keeping them as you are.” Severa glances at the waiting car and men in the driveway before leaning forward and kissing Lucina, who stiffens in surprise. “You stay safe too.”

“I'll text you when we get there, so you know we arrived okay.” Lucina's a little breathless. 

Chrom clears her throat and goes to sit in his seat while Severa's father smiles and waves at them before joining him.

The girls turn their attention back to each other. After a long moment of silence, Lucina nods and pulls off her hideous gold and crimson scarf. To Severa's horror, she holds it out to her. “Take this.”

Yeah, no.

“I'm serious, Severa. I'm really worried about you.” Her expression begins to crumple, and Severa feels a heaviness gnaw at her insides. “I had hope to give this to you as a token in that it may keep you safe at times when I can't.”

“Ugh, fine.” Severa starts to grab the proffered article from Lucina, but the latter has already moved to throw it around the redhead's neck. “I can do that myself.”

“I wanted to do it for you.”

Severa's touched by the sentiment but disgusted by the scarf. Still, she lets Lucina tie it around her slowly, her knuckles gently grazing the line of the redhead's jaw. When she's finished, Lucina stares at her, biting down on her lower lip. Her eyes are troubled. 

Severa snorts, gently, “You look like you're going to say goodbye for the last time.” 

“I just have this feeling...” Lucina's eyes search her face, like they are committing every detail to memory. She looks terrified as if she may forget her in her heart if they part. 

Severa grabs Lucina's hand and squeezes. “I'll see you soon, okay?” When Lucina doesn't seem reassured, Severa leans in and kisses her again, sighing against her lips. “You'll see me when you get back. Besides, how much trouble can I get into in one day?”

Lucina chuckles. “I don't even want to know.” She gazes at her for a long time before moving in to leave a slow, lingering kiss that reveals how much she doesn't want to go. “Bye, Severa.” 

They part, and when Lucina leaves with their fathers, Severa lets out a long exhale. She leans back against the side of the car, contemplating her newly made promise and her plans to look for Captain Cervantes. At length, she decides to drive by his house to check it out and nothing more, and gets into her car.

After a few minutes, Severa takes a left onto Pegasus Way, nearing Owain's former home when a movement catches her attention. She glances to her right and sees Cynthia storming across her front yard with a trash bag in her hand. The huffing girl gets to the trash car sitting on the curb, tosses it in, and turns around to go back in when she looks over and catches Severa staring at her. 

The sky is orange, Lucina is acting like this is the end, and, heck, Severa might as well make up with Cynthia for something she said in fifth grade. It's not like the day could get much weirder.

Severa stops the car and gets out, leaving it idling in the road. “Cynthia.”

“Ice Queen.” 

Severa rolls her eyes. “You can try to be cordial sometimes.”

Cynthia scoffs, “Hey, you're dating my best friend, not me. I don't need to be nice to you, especially when you haven't returned the favour once.” 

Fair point.

Severa stops in front of the other girl, who's huffing and bundled up in several sweaters that make her resemble a misshaped egg. “I just wanted to say that I'm sorry.”

“About what in particular?” Cynthia crosses her arms. “You kind of have a long list of things to apologize for.”

“You keep lists?”

“Shut up, it was a figure of speech!”

Severa sighs. She shoves her hands into her pockets. “Look, I'm sorry about what I said. When your mom had cancer. I made a joke that was cruel, cause I didn't know how to handle the news but you blew things out of proportion.” She holds up a hand to stop Cynthia's protest. “I said something mean, but you dumped all of your rage on me when I didn't deserve it. So, yeah, you're kind of a jackass too.”

Cynthia's mouth clamps shut. “I have no idea why Lucina is dating you.”

“Well, she does, and I sort of do. That's good enough for me.” 

Cynthia eyes her. “You've changed. A lot. I don't know how I feel about this.” 

Severa shrugs and makes to leave when Cynthia's voice halts her. “Severa.” She strides up to the redhead and holds out her hand. “Let's just forget about what happened before. We both care about Lucina, and that's all that should matter.” 

Severa stares at the proffered hand before looking away, hiding her expression. She takes Cynthia's hand and shakes it. “Guess you're not as much as of a dweeb as I thought you were.” 

Cynthia rolls her eyes. “I'll let Lucina know that name-calling is your way of saying 'I love you'.” She hops into a sitting position on the hood of Severa's car, and the driver hisses at her. “So, what brings you out here?”

“Wait. Just like that, you're going to help me?”

“Yeah, that's what friends do, even when you're helping grumpy, emotionally stunted ones.” Cynthia scoffs, “Besides, you actually said you were sorry for something, and the sky is strange. Personally, I think the world's starting to end.”

Severa's fingers twitch. “Screw you too.” 

“That's the spirit, new best buddy!” 

Severa can't tell if Cynthia's messing with her. “Do you know where Captain Cervantes lives? Large, walrus-shaped man with a matching moustache?”

“Why?”

“I need to speak to him about something, and he didn't come in today to the sheriff's department.”

“And you can't get your mom to do it because...?”

“Are you going to help or not?”

Cynthia pouts. She points Severa down a couple of blocks, and the redhead thanks her briefly before leaving. The energetic girl stops her as Severa's about to get into her car, and grabs her in a hug so tight that Severa thinks she hears the bones in her spine crack. “That's to make up for all the years we didn't speak to each other. Bye, Severa.”

“Bye.”

Severa takes off down the street towards the captain's house, feeling strangely lighter than she has in years. 

She drives down several blocks, only to see Cervantes frantically packing a luggage the size of his belly into his car. Interesting.

Severa parks across from his home, kills the engine, and gets out of the car. She approaches him as he pivots to use his shoulder to jam the luggage bag further in. “Looks like you're running away.”

Cervantes whips around, his hand yanking his gun from his holster and aiming it at her. Severa pauses and slowly raises up her hands while the sweating man hisses, “Put your hands down, you imbecile! Do you want everyone to see?”

“Hey, you're the one pointing a gun at my face!” 

Cervantes swears and shoves the firearm back into his holster. He turns and gives the luggage a hard shove before he reaches up and slams the trunk door closed. "I'm getting out as you should be too. Are you aware of the danger that your mother's actions has put you in?"

Severa growls, "Says the man who lied on his investigative report regarding the death of the sheriff's nephew."

He barks, a wounded sort of sound. "The funny thing about that is that you were right. I forged evidence to mask a murder. For the record—" He goes quiet. "—I didn't kill him, but I covered up for the man who did."

Severa gapes. She didn't expect a confession this easily. She didn't expect one at all. "Wait, why? Also, now you're just going to bail after admitting what you did?"

Cervantes open a passenger side door, pulling back the heavy beige cover that blankets the seat. Severa goes absolutely quiet. "I don't plan to run away, but I certainly also don't plan to meet what's coming for me in a town of people still innocent of the things I've done. Above all things, I've sworn to protect them. I'm only sorry that it's taken me until the end to remember it." He tugs the cover back over the seat, hiding the pile of firearms and ammo that forms a strange shape behind him.

Severa swallows, her thoughts swimming. "What do you mean the end?"

He gives her a sad look before opening a passenger side door and picking up a brown package from the seat. He waddles over to her. "My ambitions were larger than my capabilities, and I had thought that perhaps I could bring the Grimleal down from the inside." He twists his arm, his shift sleeve flaring, and Severa glimpses a tattoo on the inside of his wrist that looks like part of an eye. "All I managed to do was take this from them, and they know. An animal doesn't steal from its handler without consequences."

"What is that?" 

“I'm sorry.” He jams the wrapped package into the startled girl's hands, and, for a moment, she wonders if it's a bomb. “I'm so sorry.” 

Severa shoves it back at him. “Hey, wait! I don't want this!” 

“Take this, you stubborn girl!” He lowers his voice, nearly hissing. “This might give you your only chance to fight them off.”

“What are you giving to me? Why?”

Cervantes sighs, sagging. “I'm a traitor in every sense of the word—to my town, to the sheriff, and to myself. Let me do one piece of good before they come for me.”

“Who will?”

He look at her. He looks so tired. “The same ones coming for you. Do you think we can outrun the Grimleal forever? They know who you are.” 

He throws the package at her, and Severa stumbles backwards as Cervantes yanks open his car door and squeezes himself in. "If I were you, young Faulkner, I would not go back to the sheriff's department with that. Call your mother but not anyone else. And don't touch anything anyone from the department give you. They're looking to mark." 

He turns on the engine and streaks off before she can comprehend what happened. Tentatively, she shakes what she has in her hands, noting that if it was a bomb, it should have already blown up on her from sheer stupidity. A corner of the brown wrapping paper is starting to peel off, and Severa gingerly pulls it back to reveal what looks like an old book with yellowing pages. She nearly pitches it across the driveway before she tears the packaging more to inspect for signs of clamps or odd symbols in the shape of a six-winged dragon.

When she finds none, she lets out a sigh of relief and shuffles the package under her arm as she slides into her car. To hell with Cervantes' advice, she was going back to the department and dumping the tome on the sheriff's desk. She doesn't need this stress or this weird day. 

Severa makes it halfway there before turning around and heading to the woods at the end of town. For the last ten minutes, there have been no less than two cars following her in brown, unmarked vehicles, dogging her at every odd turn she makes. She loses them as she speeds through a red light at an intersection and takes off a high speed towards anywhere but there. When she's sure they're gone, she pulls over to a cluster of trees by the road, her fingers shaking as she dials her mother's number. When Cordelia doesn't pick up, Severa swears loudly, ranting that the one time she wanted to talk to her mother, she isn't available at all. She calls another three times and when no one answers again, Severa throws her phone on the passenger side seat beside her and takes off towards the only other place she feels safe in this town.

Noire blinks in surprise when she opens her door. "I didn't know you were coming over."

Severa slips past her, clutching Cervantes' package to her chest. "Shut the door and lock it." 

Noire does as she's asked with a questioning look on her face. "You sound strained."

Severa dumps the package on Noire's kitchen table next to a small wrapped box, and races to the windows to ensure they are shut before yanking the curtains over them. "I'm being followed."

Noire's immediately at her side, concern creasing her face. "What do you mean? Are you okay?"

"Yeah. I just...I have something of theirs that the people following me might want back." Severa glances over at Noire and stares. The dark-haired girl rubs at her arms as she should, considering she's only wearing a sleeveless shirt in the chilly air. "Aren't you freezing?"

"I felt...warm today. I don't know why." Noire twists to look out her kitchen window, nervousness across her face. A strap of her top slides off of her shoulder, and Severa stares at the marking on her friend's right shoulder blade, a birthmark that resembles a circle with jagged edges. Noire's always had it, but for some reason, looking at it now makes the hair on Severa's neck rise. “I swear you are the only person who has something that weird looking.”

“My mother has a similar one too.” Noire throws Severa a reproachful look. “And don't you have something like this on your hip too?” She lowers her voice. “Did Lucina already get to see it?”

“Geez, back off. We just got back together.” Severa's ears are on fire. “And no, she hasn't, thank you very much. I'm not some sort of harlot.” Though she was very, very tempted to be one if only momentarily. 

Noire's eyes catches on the package Severa tossed on her table. She stares. "What is that?" She steps towards it as if in a dream, the look in her eye hazy and faraway like she's hearing a conversation with someone Severa can't see. "Can I open it?"

Before Severa can answer, Noire rips the wrapping clear off, revealing an ancient tome that looks like it's seen better days. The heavy book sits on the scratched plastic table with a cover that's faded to a matted red, the colour of a dying rose with a dull glint of tarnished gold embossing the front of the book in the shape of circles overlapping. 

Noire's fingers hover near the book. “It just feels so familiar, like a friend, like something that was meant to be mine.” The tips of her finger graze the sides of the tome, and for a moment, Severa swears that she sees a spark flicker between her hands and the pages. 

“Hey, we should leave that alone. That might be evidence for something.” Severa frowns at the book, feeling like she's seen it before.

Noire withdraws her hands, a tight look on her face like she's been denied her birthright. “Of course.” She gazes at the book with an odd, possessive expression like a jealous lover before covering it with the brown wrapping she tore off before.

Severa turns to the other package on the table and frowns at the small box with the phrase, "Be seeing you soon" scrawled across the top in flowing penmanship. This day could not get any creepier. "What is that?"

"I don't know." Noire moves over to, lifting the lid from the box. revealing a weathered, tiny hourglass that could fit in Severa's palm nestled among a white cloth. It makes the redhead uneasy. “Someone sent this to me today, but it doesn't say who it's from.” 

Severa stares at it, feeling a powerful compulsion, a caressing, low whisper in the front of her mind that charms her like the sound of music to serpents. It tells her to get the hourglass out, and she does, reaching forward to tip it carefully out of the box and onto the table. The glass clatters, a bomb in the silence of the house. Severa swallows, her body stiffening involuntarily. The whispering gets louder, sweet and heavy and forcing itself into her thoughts, easily wresting them away from her control. Something chuckles, a dead sound, and she feels an command, a demand to touch the bizarre item.

The hourglass is made from a faded brown wood, covered with scratches and bearing dark sands the colour of ebony, of night in the absence of light. A weathered and faded symbol sits on top of the hourglass, the lines lost to time, but Severa feels that she's seen it before. If she squints, she can almost make what looks like an eye weeping, and there is something screaming in the back of her mind to smash it, to burn it away but it's smothered by the cooing of the voices creeping into her head.

Noire watches her reach for the hourglass, her expression frozen, as if she's compelled to do so. Severa's fingers graze the cool glass, struggling between grabbing it and slipping away. She lets out a long exhale, caught in a moment where it feels like she's stuck in an eternity that won't end, and she's immortal, unable to move forward or backwards with the flow of time. A tip of a finger traces the curve of the glass to the ancient wood, and Severa can't turn her eyes away from what she's doing nor can she stop herself, her motion automatic like she's observing herself from outside her body. She nearly touches the faded imprint when her phone vibrates in her pocket. Severa snaps backwards as if waking up. She fishes her cell out and notices a text from Lucina that tells her that everyone arrived safely and reminds her to be careful. Rolling her eyes, she steps away, feeling an oppressive weight lift from her mind, the strange spell broken. “Sorry, girlfriend being paranoid.” 

The dark-haired girl nods and waves her away, her eyes caught on the hourglass. Severa turns away to answer, feeling an immense wave of gratitude towards Lucina for some reason, and Noire steps into the space she leaves at the table. She finishes firing back a reply when she hears a shrill shriek, and there's the cracking sound of glass breaking on the floor. 

Noire bolts by Severa to get to the sink, pawing at the tap to get it going and shoving her hand under the blast of water, tears at the corners of her eyes. Severa moves towards her and pauses at the broken hourglass on the floor, tiny black grains of sand spilling out like innards of something ancient and unpleasant, and something sinks in her stomach at the sight, like something definite has changed and they can no longer go back to the way things were. 

"Noire, are you all right?"

“I'm sorry, Severa! I'm so sorry!” Noire lifts away from the stream of cold water, and Severa nearly screams as her friend raises her palm, the stench of scorched flesh singing in the air. 

On her hand is a burning brand in the shape of an eye.


	20. Mad World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The men following Severa show up at Noire's house, cornering them in the kitchen. Things get worse from there.

Severa's dialling her mother before she's aware of it. This time, she manages to get through, and it takes her nearly a minute to register her mother's confused voice on the phone and the fact that Severa's shouting incoherently at her.

“Severa! Please slow down. What's happened?”

Severa stumbles from her place by the fridge to the sink where the bright red of Noire's burnt skin sends her stomach reeling like it plummeted down a well. “Noire's been marked by the Grimleal! They'll come for her!”

“What? How?”

“She touched this hourglass she got through the mail, and, oh gods, it burned her skin like that book burned Owain. Weird cars are following me and, holy shit, is this day messed up!”

“Severa, you're not making sense. Where are you?”

“At Noire's house.”

“Stay there. I'm coming right now with Tharja.” 

Severa feels something loosen in her chest. “Okay, please hurry.” She looks out the window, and her stomach drops out as two familiar, plain brown cars pull up in the grassy trail outside the house. Four men get out, dressed in the sheriff's uniforms and move towards the house. “There's people here. Please tell me you sent them.”

“No.” Cordelia's voice comes out sharp. “Lock the doors, Severa, and step away from the window. Get out if you can. I'll be there soon.” She hangs up, and Severa bolts towards the front, yanking the deadbolt across as the doorknob jiggles. A knock echoes on the wood as someone calls through the door—a man, his voice a pleasant lilt before it drops into a sneer, and the door bangs, hinges groaning as it rattles in its frame. 

Severa sprints back to Noire who's grabbing the heavy tome from the table and shoving it into an open cabinet. “We need to get out.”

Noire glances back at her, something sickly in her eyes. Her voices comes out quietly. “Look around, Severa. There is no way out.” She closes the door to the cabinet. “I already checked the back. There's someone standing at the door.” 

Severa swears and glances around the kitchen, looking at the curtained window above the sink, which rattles like someone's trying to open it. “Could we fight our way out?”

Noire points to the kettle on the stovetop. “We could use that.” 

Severa eyes the dented boiler. She supposes she could try to beat someone to death with a tea kettle.

Noire opens a drawer and pulls out a knife with a blade as long as Severa's forearm. She looks at Severa, and the redhead stares at the sharp edge glinting under the kitchen lights. 

Severa swallows. “If we need to.” 

Noire nods and places the knife on the counter, teetering and falling against it. Her arms tremble, and her voice comes out quietly. “Did you lock the door to the cellar?”

Severa stares at her before barrelling towards the door outside of the kitchen beside the stairs. It's already starting to open. 

She twists and slams into it with her full momentum, clipping the person on the other side, who tumbles down the staircase in a surprised holler. Severa slips the rusty latch across the door, and curses Tharja for not being more on top of her house's upkeep. The cellar door bangs, and Severa can see the wood starting to splinter at the edges. She darts back to Noire, who stares. “We need to get out. Maybe we can jump out of a window out of the second floor.”

Noire's voice is almost inaudible. “It's too late. They're already in.” 

Severa doesn't answer that, and all that's heard in the silence of the house is the banging of the cellar door. They stare at it, and Severa breaks the quiet. “When I distract them, make a run for it and tell my mother what happened.” 

“I—I'm not leaving you.”

“You have to. They're looking for you now that you have—” Severa glances at the still smoking brand. She wants to retch. “—that you've been marked. They'll hunt you down, and it's my fault. I brought them here first.” 

“You don't know that. It might have been the hourglass! I—”

“If you can take the book on your way out, that'd work too.” Severa steps forward ahead of Noire. She pulls another knife out of a side drawer. “Run as far as you can and don't look back, whatever you do.”

“I can't—”

Severa snarls, “I'm trying to protect you, Noire! We both don't have to die.” 

Noire's eyes shine with a wet gleam. “I don't want you to die either!”

A gunshot rings through out the house, and the cellar door swings open, the latch blown clear off from the frame. Four men emerge from the darkness of the stairs, and it takes Severa a moment to realize that the creepy guy with the common face is one of them. Her stomach roils and she wants to vomit when she realizes that all of them are wearing their deputy uniforms. 

The man whose hand Lon'qu had mangled strides towards her. He raises a hand to her in greeting with a smile on his face, a tonsure bandage wrapped around his right wrist. “Did your friend ever give you my flower?”

The hell is he talking about?

“I see she didn't. No matter. I'll make my own introduction. My name is Gil De Rais,” he continues towards her, “and you should put those knives away before you get hurt.”

Knives?

Severa glances back and sees Noire holding the cutting knife in front in her with two hands. Her arms are trembling.

De Rais eyes her with an unconcern expression. “You don't know how to use that.” 

No. But Severa knows how to use hers. 

One of the men raises his gun from his holster. “You can put that away and come with us without a fight, or we can put three bullets into your legs and we'll drag you with us.” 

“N-no! I'm not letting you—” 

Severa says, quietly, “Noire, put the knife down.” She sees the man support his shooting arm with his other hand and understands that he means it. “Please.” 

Noire lowers the knife. She almost looks betrayed.

De Rais chuckles. “Not only pretty but smart as well. I'm definitely going to enjoy you.” He turns to Noire and smiles. “Hello. This is the first time we've met, but you're family still.”

Noire backs away. “What are you talking about?”

De Rais clucks his tongue. “Did your mother never tell you where you came from? No matter, we'll reacquaint ourselves on the ride back home.”

Severa cuts in, buying time. "How did you get here so fast? Were you following me?"

The plain-faced deputy shakes his head. He pushes back the sleeve of one arm and reveals a tattoo of an eye weeping. "We feel it when someone is branded, and we can tell where they are. We're family after all."

Gods.

He gestures for Severa to put her weapon down too, and it takes one of the men cocking his gun at Noire for her to do so. He speaks to the furious redhead. “We'll just take care of your friend first, since she's already been marked.” He turns towards the trembling girl. “We'll get you to the car.” 

Two of his men cast him uneasy looks while the third one sneers at Noire. De Rais takes one step towards Noire, and Severa sweeps in, raising her leg and slamming her foot against the side of his knee. He goes down with a shout, and the rest of them leap towards Severa to take her down.

With a choked sob, Noire dives past the two deputies and nearly makes it out the front door when the third one tackles her, sending them crashing against the doorframe. She opens her mouth, and the man hits her across the face, her head bouncing off of the floor with a terrible thud like something breaking. Noire goes limp, and Severa screams.

The two men shove the third one off of her. One of them hiss, “Grima won't take her if she's dead already!” He reaches down to place two fingers against her jugular vein and after several moments, sighs in relief. “Grissom, you're a lucky man, but you're also a fucking idiot.” 

De Rais gets up, stumbling and holding his knee. He hisses, keeping his eyes on Severa, but he addresses his men. “Take her to the transfer point, and I will talk with Grissom when we get there. I'll meet you there and take this one myself after we have a quick...” One corner of his mouth lifts almost into a sneer. “... chat about what she just did.” 

The men give each other uncertain looks but move to follow his orders. Severa snarls and dashes towards Noire, only to be blocked by the smiling deputy, his gun jamming into her ribs.

“You'll be with me until I take you.” He steps into her space, and the redhead darts back. She tugs at her throat, the weight of Lucina's scarf suffocating her. “You'll end up with her, but little pretty thing—” He leans, baring the sharp curve of his teeth. “—I get to leave my mark on you first.”

De Rais orders the men to take Noire, and after several unreadable glances, they pick Noire off of the ground, her head rolling limply as blood trails down her forehead. She looks dead already. They slowly move through the front door and out into the car.

Severa watches them carry Noire away.

De Rais speaks, softly. “Don't look so sad. You'll join her soon enough.” 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Severa snarls and edges around the kitchen table to put some space between them while De Rais looks amused. “What is even your justification for doing all of this?”

He shrugs, sliding his gun back into his holster. “I serve my god as I've been instructed. If I happen to enjoy myself along the way, it's no skin off of my back.” 

“How can you possibly enjoy yourself doing what you do?”

“I do it in the service of others.” He smiles. “Like that William boy. I picked him up on my route. He didn't put up much of a fight, and he was already dying with the mark of Grima on him.” He tilts his head as if calculating something. “He probably had a week at most. Those not in Grima's bloodlines tend to die quickly once marked. I just put him out of his misery. If it makes you feel any better, he was brave until the end.”

Severa stares at him, her limbs trembling. She's facing down the man who took Owain. “You're the man Cervantes covered for.”

The deputy sneers. “Cervantes was never a real Grimleal. He was never born into it unlike that traitor Tharja. He doesn't have the spine to be one, to do what needs to be done to revive our god.” He slowly runs his hand along Noire's table, smiling, and Severa wants to hurl something sharp at him. “By the way, Cervantes mentioned something interesting to me after I took that boy. He said that there was a young eyewitness he encountered that found a book that sounds like it belongs to us.” His eyes cut sharply to her. “Would you know anything about it?”

Severa clenches the edges of the table. “What are you talking about?”

He studies her before chuckling. “You do know, and I'll get it out of you one way or another.” He lazily circles the table. “For the record, Cervantes is a coward at heart. He wouldn't touch the boy's body when I finished, so I had to dispose of it myself.” De Rais glances at her face and shrugs. “Owain died for the service of Grima.”

“Don't you say his name!” Severa cries, something hot and furious creeping up her throat. “What is this to you? Some kind of sick ritual?”

He looks at her, frowning. “It is a ritual, yes, but there's nothing ill about it. Grima created you, and when we release you, you will return to him. Your life has always belonged to Grima.” He strides forward, his footsteps echoing in the emptiness of the house. “Grima is our truth. He formed the world and gave life to us, so it is our duty to bring life back to him all costs.”

Severa snarls, “What are you talking about? Grima tried to destroy the world, and Naga stopped him.”

He growls, his face twisting into animalistic lines. “Naga is a usurper and a liar, and she stole Grima's rightful worshippers by painting him in the guise of a monster! Grima is the true god, and it is our duty to destroy all the heretics who proclaim otherwise!

“And besides, she doesn't even exist anymore,” he sneers. “When is the last time she's reached out to help you?” He casts out his arms, raising them to indicate the environment around them. “Grima is still around us, in every whisper and every person. Grima has declared this world corrupted beyond redemption. He will burn it down and recreate us in the image we were meant to be.”

When Severa woke up this morning, she did not think she'd be arguing theological doctrines while stalling for her life around Noire's kitchen table. “There're so many things wrong with what you said. One, that's not even what Naga does. Do you even understand what she governs?”

De Rais casually checks his watch. “I understand that we're striking against her right now. As we speak, my Grimleal brothers and sisters are attacking Naga's sanctuaries in Valm as we speak—her churches.”

Severa's heartbeat stops in her throat. “You're attacking Valm's churches?”

“Yes.” His eyes glint in the day's dying light, the sunlight from the window highlighting the harsh lines of his face. “We're setting fire to the heart of Naga's strength.”

Something cold clenches Severa's throat. She feels something sick creep down her front, a heavy weight that pulls at the contents of her stomach. She thinks of Lucina and her father, the sheriff, and a fresh wave of fear sweeps through her, cold and unforgiving like a winter storm. “You're lying.”

He shrugs. “Doesn't bother me if you don't believe it. We already did it.” 

Severa slams her hands into the table. “You sick fucks!” 

“Language, girl. I thought Cordelia, the town's darling, would have taught you better.” De Rais eyes her before shrugging. “At the very least, she should have been a more watchful mother to you.”

“Shut up!” Severa snaps, backing away. “You don't get to talk about her like that.”

“Sensitive to the truth, are we? I wonder though. If she had answered your phone when you called her, would you even be in this mess?”

Severa feels her face go numb. “You saw that.”

“I watched from the trees, but don't be too hard on her. We're paying her a visit now as we speak.” He checks his watch again, casually sweeping his hair from his eyes. “But maybe she'll escape if you hold her in such high regards, like the townspeople. Chrom stepped all over people who have served him for decades to have a high school teacher be our superior.” 

Severa's voices goes high, tight. “So, what? This is all personal? Some vendetta you have against my mother that you're taking out on me?”

“The main reason is that you have the mark of Odo on you.” 

“What are you talking about?”

“Your bloodline. You are the fortunate descendent of someone who made a blood pact with a god several thousand years ago. I'm surprised that your father didn't educate you more on the subject.” 

Severa snarls, “Don't you ever shut up?”

“The sword saint—”

She snaps, “I know him, thank you very much! Daughter of a priest, remember? I understand my theology!”

“Really? Then, do you know the name of the god who's bond to you by blood, and what they control?” He circles around the table, and Severa dashes back, baring her teeth. “In any case, you can thank your mother for this particular genealogy. With his blood in her, how do you think she's managed all of her accomplishments? Odo grants her heightened strength and speed beyond any normal person's abilities, especially in extreme distress. How fair is it that we have to labour while she does nothing to earn what she has? That we have to fear the monster that she can become?”

“She has everything she has, because she's a genius, works hard, and is someone worthwhile, unlike you.”

He makes a sound like he's disappointed in her. “Slinging mud because you can't come up with anything better?”

“Hello? Kettle talking to the pot?” Severa edges around the table in the opposite direction as he follows her. “Aren't you afraid of me? 

“Of what? What do you have to show for it?” De Rais snorts, “You can do nothing that scares me.” He grins, his teeth sharp and curved. “Grima is my god, and I honour him the way I know and was taught. I work to spill the blood of those who wrongfully sealed him away. Children of the Grimleal were made to be his body for when he returns, but there was one more fit than the rest to be his. We look for the perfect vessel that was stolen from us decades ago—Validar's daughter who was made in the image of Grima and whatever tainted spawn she's made.” 

“Ugh, that is so cliché. Waiting for your 'chosen one' or your saviour to show up? Couldn't you commit atrocities with some creativity?'

He ignores her. “I'm not worthy of his love, but I work to earn it. When he comes back, I will have his regard and be rewarded richly for my faith in him.”

“Not worthy? What are you? Some rejected vessel that wasn't up to Grima's standards, and now you have to hunt down children for him to make up for the fact that you weren't good enough?”

His face stills for a long moment. He speaks, quietly. “I'm going to enjoy what I will do to you.” 

De Rais reaches into his jacket, and Severa's heart leaps into her throat as the the hair all over her body stands stiff. She instinctively pulls off Lucina's scarf and wraps it around her left forearm while he laughs at her. She prays to Naga. “You've got a reputation, Severa. A little girl trying so hard to be her mother and failing so utterly that the people secretly pity you. Reckless, friendless—it'd be easy to spin a story where you ran away, an angry girl with the weight of the world's scorn on her back. No one will even miss you when you're gone. Oh, Cordelia might if she thinks of you. If she does, the sheriff's department will spend months searching for you, but they won't get you until we give you back.” 

He steps towards her. “And when they find you, they'll say, 'What happened to Cordelia's daughter? She used to be so pretty'.”

He pulls out a knife.


	21. Girl on Fire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucina investigates the church in Valm with Libra and Chrom, only to be attacked and flee through an underground passage. The things they find below makes Lucina wish she stayed in Ylisse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Random author fact: I read a ton of Stephen King's books when I was growing up. Why is this relevant? Well, continue reading.
> 
> Also, I broke the 100k word count mark. What have I done?

Lucina sighs in relief at the sarcastic reply she receives from Severa. She wonders if she has been more paranoid than warranted, since she seems safe and is about to send another message when her father waves at her from outside the car.

Chrom calls her from the steps of a towering white church. “Lucina, are you ready to go?”

“Coming!” Lucina hesitates, staring at her phone for a minute before shutting it off. She doesn't want any ringing to disturb Libra's and Chrom's conversation with Father Matthews. She tucks the device into her pocket, exits the car, and runs towards where Libra and her father wait for her. Her breath catches at the sight of the church, its spire a single steel point jutting out of the steeple like a sword at the sky. "I don't think I've ever seen something that big before."

Libra smiles. "My church is more of a modest sort, though Father Matthews' has been constructed on the remains of another chapel that used to be here. In fact, much of Valm has been built over an older section of the city that had been around for decades before the war."

"Really? So, what happened—"

Chrom clears his throat. "We can discuss that on the way back home." He glances between the two of them. “Are you prepared for what may come if things go badly?”

Lucina gazes at him. “Like what?”

Her father turns to her. “Floods, earthquakes, fires, power outrage, acts of Naga.” He shrugs. “It doesn't hurt to be ready just in case.” He turns and pats a pack on his side. “I've got several flashlights if something happens.” At her expression, he adds, “Your mother was the one who suggested I bring them.”

That sounds about right.

Her father hands one of his lights to Libra, and the three of them walk up the dirty white steps to the church, reaching the top where its massive doors sit slightly ajar with lights off inside. Lucina immediately feels uneasy. It feels like no one's home.

Libra and her father exchanges glances with Chrom positioning himself in front of her while Libra takes the lead. He pushes the door in. It's dark, despite sunlight streaming through the windows in scattered rays across the floors. Lucina hears the echoes of their footsteps like solid drumbeats, and the silence of the church almost crushes them in its weight. It doesn't even feel like an absence of sound; it feels like a vacuum.

It's with relief that they get to the carpeted section of the floor, and Lucina can stop hearing each of their steps. They reach the raised platform of the pulpit while an unbroken layer of dust coats it. The three of them glance at each other.

Libra disappears into the back room, only to come out a few minutes later with a puzzled expression and a coffee cup that's half filled with liquid and a mouldy ring inside. “Father Matthews seems to be missing.” 

Chrom glances sharply around the room. “Nothing's locked up though, but it looks like he's been gone for days.” He places a hand on the gun on his hip. “I want us to search the area. Lucina, stick to either Severa's father or me.” 

Libra nods. “Perhaps, you should call for back-up.”

“I agree.” Chrom reaches for his phone when he glances over to the stand beside them. “Wait, there's something weird there.”

Libra examines the dark wood. “It's slightly crooked.” He moves the pulpit over and shuffles his hand on the floor, searching for something. “Ah.” 

From the dust, he pulls at what looks like an iron handle and a section of the floor lifts up on a hinge. Libra drops the trapdoor, and they stare at a stone lid that's slightly bigger than a manhole cover. Carefully, Libra closes his fingers and shoves the lid away, heaving. 

Lucina stares. Severa's father made chopping a pile of firewood seem effortless. How heavy is that cover?

Chrom peers down into the opening below them, a stone mouth carved into the ground large enough to fit two people at a time. “A passage?”

They gaze down at the entrance, a spiral of stone stairs descending into darkness. Lucina peers in and feels hot air waft against her face, slightly damp and rancid like the humid breath of a starving animal. “I propose we not go down there without further help.” 

Libra stands up. “I concur.”

Both of them turn to Chrom, who raises his eyebrows in surprise. “What? Did you expect me to say we should?”

They stare at him, and he almost seems offended. “I agree with you both. Thank you for your faith in me.” He turns towards the doors. "We should leave."

He takes a step, and there's something in the air, an intangible warning that has the hair on Lucina's nape standing up as she snaps her gaze around the church. She tenses, and the moment she shifts forward, she knows something is wrong.

A window in the back breaks in a shower of glass, sending fragments scattering across the floor. Whatever flew through it hits a pew, and immediately sets it alight. Several more windows shatter as fire flies through them, landing on the carpet and setting trails of flames across the dark red fabric. Across from them, a set of hands pull the church doors shut as something heavy is heard scraping outside.

They're trapped inside the burning church.

"Why is someone attacking us?" Chrom coughs, raising an arm to his mouth. “We need to get out.” 

Libra covers his nose and mouth, "There's a window in Father Matthews' office. We can break though it."

The window closest to them explodes as an object lands in front of them, skittering on the surface of the carpet as something grey and metal ticks away. 

Lucina doesn't get to see what it is, as her father hurls himself over her and Libra, shoving them all down the stairs. “The cover!”

Libra grabs one of the handles and yanks the screeching stone cover across the entrance. He barely closes it when an explosion throws them against the walls. In the darkness, Lucina stumbles against someone who grabs her, the stairs shaking as if to collapse. When the rumbling subsides and Lucina can stand up, she hears a hiss from Libra and feels a sudden movement near her ear. She asks, “Are you okay?”

“Yes, though the heat burnt my hand. I'll have to get it treated once we get out of here.” There's a sound of fabric shuffling, and a sudden spread of light from Libra illuminates the staircase. “Flashlight,” he adds as if he senses Lucina staring.

“Oh. I'd thought that you were casting magic for a moment.” Lucina feels her cheeks burn.

Libra chuckles. “No, though I wished that was the case sometimes. Chrom?”

Her father flicks on his flashlight and hands Lucina a third one. “Stay behind me the whole time.” 

Libra nudges both of them down. “We may want to get moving, since the fire from the explosion is heating up the stones around us.” 

Chrom halts him. “Wait, how badly are you burnt?”

Libra holds his hand to one of their lights. There are red marks across his palm, and Lucina's stomach clenches at the sight of blood pooling where the skin blisters away. “I just need some time and treatment. I've always healed abnormally quickly.”

That doesn't seem like something most people could recover from without medical treatment, but the heat around them coagulates in the air, stifling them and prompting them to move. Her father speaks up after a few minute when they can breathe again. "Why do you think someone is setting fire to the church? There must be evidence that they're trying to eliminate."

Libra's tone is quiet. His words strike as hard as a hammer at a forge. "Perhaps, it's not evidence that they were trying to get rid of."

Chrom has nothing to say, and Lucina's stomach drops.

They descend the stone staircase slowly, carefully, until the soles of Lucina's feet ache. It feels like they've gone down far more than they should have, and the darkness seems to grow like black mould the further they go. The scorching air above them bleeds into a coolness that isn't quite freezing, but there's a moisture in the air like a clammy caress across her skin. At times, she swears she hears the sound of something moving just beyond the stones. It almost feels the staircase is breathing around them. 

At last, the stairs flattens out into a tunnel made of the same material, carved crudely into blocks, and she hears the other two sigh as if releasing a long-held breath. Libra sweeps his flashlight over the walls where faded drawings of an eye weeping adorn the stone. He stares. 

Her father stops them before they can go further. “We need to see if we can contact anyone down here.” He checks his phone and curses. “I don't have a signal.” 

Libra and Lucina quickly look at their own, and with a feeling like her stomach is sinking through to her shoes, Lucina realizes that she can't reach Severa. “We need to get out.” 

Chrom nods. “Agreed, but we proceed carefully. We don't know who's down here.”

Or what, Lucina wants to add. "Where are we?"

Libra glances around. "Remember how I said that Valm's church was built on top of an existing structure? Well, this appears to be it, though this part seems to be attached to an underground route. However—" He sweeps his light over the drawings of weeping eyes. "—this is the mark of the Grimleal. We're in their territory."

Her father growls, placing a hand over the gun in his holster. "We don't know where this tunnel leads, and we can't go back with that fire over us since we don't know when it'll burn out. We'll just have to keep going." 

Libra turns to him. "It seems abandoned if that's any consolation." 

From the way, her father pulls his gun out of his holster, it isn't. The two of them glance at her before leaning down and speaking in hushed whispers. Lucina turns her attention to the mouldy stone walls around them, and her head begins to hurt.

The narrowness of the tunnel before her reminds of travelling down the throat of a living creature, patient and gluttonous all the same. The walls bear down on her as if trying to crowd into her space, and Lucina squeezes her eyes, hearing something like whispers in a dark and forgotten tongue at her back. She hears the sound of scraping behind them like a someone limping while dragging a broken limb, but every time, she shines her light behind them, she sees nothing. Her temple throbs. A headache beats behind her eyes in the dark of the tunnel, and something cold and icy squeezes at her stomach. She swears she hears the owner of the whispers laugh, something low and guttural, and her thoughts spin in her head. She wipes at her brow, and, despite the chill of the air, her fingers come away with sweat. She glances at her father and Libra, who both walk forward with wariness but show no signs of sharing the same pain Lucina feels. Why is she the only one's affected?

Lucina coughs, rubbing at her forehead, her eyes. Nothing helps. "There's something wrong down here."

Her father's instantly by her side. "Are you okay, Lucina?"

She closes her eyes and steadies her breath. Her headache sharpens into a tight pain like a blade into her brain. She glances at the walls, and the coldness of the stairs leaks into her lungs, her insides. She shakes. "I feel strange looking at these drawings as if I'm...there's something coming out of them to get me."

Libra steps in front of her. He brings her hands together in prayer and places a soothing touch on the back of her knuckles. The warmth of his hand chases away the coldness and brings Lucina back to the worried look of her father and the gentle one of Libra.

Libra says, “You're not alone, Lucina. I feel it too." He glances around them. "There's a living sickness spreading through the walls." 

"So, what do you do? How are you handling it?" Severa's father looks as serene in the tunnels as he does in the fields behind his church.

"In times of doubt and uncertainty, I think of things that I hold dear, and it carries me and my faith back to Naga.”

The things she holds dear? Lucina processes this as her father hugs her, the weight and strength in his arms familiar and safe. She relaxes as he says, “I'm here for you. Always.”

She leans into him, feeling some of her headache fade away. "Thank you." She shuts her eyes and thinks of home—of her mother smiling as she sits down at the kitchen table with a mug of tea and her brother laughing at a terrible joke she made. Severa flits across her mind, sharing one of those rare, beautiful smiles she barely shows the world, and a warmth spreads in her chest. Lucina feels the chill from the walls loosen. Something must have shown on her face, because the concern eases away from both men and they slowly move forward again.

After a few moment, Libra looks back at her. "What do you love about my daughter?”

Lucina nearly stumbles over a broken stone, face heating up in the dark. “What?”

He chuckles. “That expression on your face some minutes ago was very telling. More importantly, concentrate on my question and tell me, Lucina. It'll take your mind off of where we are.” As if sensing her embarrassment, he adds, "Your father had the same love-struck look on his face when he first met your mother. He still does from time to time."

Chrom argues, "I wasn't that bad."

Libra raises an eyebrow. "You used to mope when she wasn't around."

"Because she was a great friend—"

“Whom you visited every day, rain or shine, pacing outside her door in a nervous fit until she took pity on you and let you in.” 

“That was not what hap—”

“I like the upward tilt of Severa's eyes.” Lucina feels her cheeks flare. She's not quite in the mood to hear the story of her parent's courtship. “I think it's quite pretty.”

Libra hums in agreement. “It comes from her mother's side of the family. Cordelia had a grandmother from Chon'sin.”

“Wait, really?”

“Yes. And there's a birthmark on her hip that looks like interlocking triangles if you haven't seen it yet.” He glances at her sidelong, and Lucina flushes while Chrom clears his throat and looks away awkwardly. “No need to mention it if you have.”

“I haven't—I mean, my intentions—”

Libra halts her with a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I'm not the type to interrogate my daughter's suitors. As long as you have a good heart and mean to protect Severa's, then you'll have little quarrel with me.”

Chrom coughs and scans the far side of the tunnel with his flashlight while Libra gives him an inquisitive look. “We seem to be nearing the end. I'll go on ahead to scout things out.”

He takes a few strides ahead of them, and Libra turns his attention back to her. He steps beside her and gently nudges her forward. “Go on, Lucina.” 

Lucina blushes, aware of how awkward it is talking to Severa's father about her when she isn't around. “I like that she's brave and compassionate, that she's such a fighter.” She recalls the times during soccer practice where the redhead would collapse, only to stand back up. "That she's persistent and determined all the same. That she's a loyal friend."

He laughs, "I think that's the first time I've heard anyone call Severa's stubbornness attractive." Libra smiles and leans in close. "When she was much younger, she was very determined not to wear clothes, and it was a common occurrence that either her mother or I would chase her throughout the house to wrestle pants onto her before company would come over. Which is why we had a rule that guests had to announce half a day in advance when they would visit."

Huh. Lucina finds herself smiling, thinking about how to work this into a tease when she gets back. "I didn't know that about her." 

"Well, to be fair, I don't think that's the kind of things she would want known." Libra sounds amused. "Since you are dating her, I think I have some leeway to share stories like that." 

"Could you tell me more?"

Libra does, from the time he caught Severa climbing onto the rooftop when she was seven to the time she ended up in the hospital with a stinger in her palm after accidentally crushing a bee on her kitchen windowsill. Or the time Cordelia caught her drag-racing down the mountain when Severa was fifteen, exhilarated from the high of winning a race. The deer-in-headlights look she gave her mother was hilarious, as Cordelia later recounted it, when she bore down on Severa in addition to the fact that Severa's first instinct was to drive away. This did not end well when she eventually came back home.

Lucina finds herself laughing at Libra's tales. There's a lot she doesn't know about Severa. She'll have to ask her when she returns. 

Libra lays a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Does that help?"

Lucina feels the headache at her temples die away to a faint ache. "It's helped immensely." 

He smiles and steps away, shining his flashlight over the wall where a symbol of tear surrounded by a spiked chalice lies marred by a dark substance in the shape of an eye. He frowns. “Tell me. What do you know of Naga?”

Lucina blinks. “Naga is the most steadfast and strongest protector of mankind against evil, who bestows wayward travellers with her guidance.”

“True, but not quite right.” Libra glances back at her. “Naga was originally worshipped for very specific reasons, the knowledge of which has gotten lost in our current culture. She's often mistaken for the goddess of blessings, but that's not Naga's actual spheres of influence. What she does have power over is time, fate, destiny, and chance. Naga helps those who seek to seize their own future.”

A light ahead marks the end of the tunnel, and the party steps into a carved cavern lit with the dying glow of half-melted candles that nearly reach Lucina's waist. On the stone wall to their right lies a drawing of dragon with six wings, eyes vivid and red in the glow of inlaid rubies. They feel like they're watching her.

Across the cavern is an entranceway lit faintly from lights farther in while a bench with stained, dark instruments sit to one side. She steps forward to examine it when a smell slaps her. It nearly makes her vomit, a stench like eggs rotting in the sunlight with a sweet cup of wine sizzling beside it. She glances towards the far wall on her left towards its origins, but her father covers her eyes with a gloved hand, having shoved his gun into his holster. “Lucina, don't look!”

She twists away, trying to peer from underneath. “What is it? What did you find?”

Libra speaks beside her. His voice is subdued, almost muted like through a hazy dream. “The remains of what used to be Father Matthews.” 

Her father makes a noise in his throat. “They got him pretty bad.”

“Yes.” There's a shuffle beside her as Libra steps forward. “All over the walls and floors, it seems like.” 

A clank echoes in the chamber as something heavy is shoved aside, scraping the stone floor. The stench floods the room as Lucina gags, reminding her of the time she went to throw out the trash last summer. When she opened the trash can, a rain of maggots fell from the bottom of the lid. In the back of her mind, it feels like there's someone riding in her thoughts, laughing at her all the while.

She feels her father place a hand on her back and guide her through what feels like a narrow archway and into someplace cool and spacious. He removes his hand, looking older than from the moment they stepped into the church. Lucina glances around, noticing a darkened room with wooden floors and shelves of books sit in their dust as if sleeping. Lights from fat, near-exhausted candles glow softly between the shelves, though a few have gone out, casting sections of the room into shadows. Whoever had been here was present no more than a few days ago. “Where are we?”

“A library of some sort.” Chrom stares through the entranceway they've just passed. “Severa's father is doing his best to bury Father Matthews.” He turns away, letting out a breath as his fingers skim the books on the shelves. “What are these?”

Lucina glances at him before pulling out a heavy volume. When she opens the book, she sees names upon names with obsessive scribbles beside them that detail who was descended from whom. Drawn lines link the names together in clusters of families and relations. 

“These are genealogies, I think.” Lucina frowns. “Is this how they track which child to take?” It seems extensively obsessive. 

Chrom pulls a book from a broken section of the bookcase and peers at the pages. “These ones appear to be about the holy weapons.” He holds it out to her. 

Lucina scans through notes detailing the use of fire, crushing methods, and explosives against the Mystletainn and the Gáe Bolg. Nothing has been noted to have worked. “They seem to be obsessed with destroying them for some reason.”

Her father raises an eyebrow. “Eliminate a means of reprisal, maybe? I mean it would make sense that weapon from a god could hurt another god.” He scans through a page with writings on the origins of the legendary lance. “Huh, according to this, the Gáe Bolg controls both love and sorrow, and is cursed to separate any lovers whose hands it falls into. That's kind of cool.”

“Father! Be serious.” Lucina snatches the book from him and puts it back on the shelf. “We don't even know why these books are here.”

She grabs a dusty tome and flips to a page in the middle, frowning as she tries to puzzle out the language. Her father pulls another tome off of the shelf and skims through lists of names and family trees. Towards the end of the book, the pages are slashed out in thin, sharp lines that make Lucina and her father look at each other in unease.

Libra joins them after some time, the look on his face silencing Lucina and her father as they follow him through the shelves. He stops near the front of the room where a thick tome lays open on a black stand, the ink on its pages fresh and dark.

Libra peers at the book, his face pale. “This is Father Matthew's writing. It looks like he's been tracking.” His fingers follow paths of lines so numerous, they seem to spill off of the page in a waterfall of ink. “Families, it seems. He's always been obsessed with the lineages of heroes. I just never thought he would work with the Grimleal to finish his research. Not that it helped him in the end.” 

Lucina points to junctures where the lines seem to merge into one. “What is this?”

“It appears to be moments when the bloodlines of the heroes would mix.” Libra peers closely, flipping the crinkling pages carefully. “The lines of Tordo and Grima, of Baldur and Heim, and—” He frowns at a page where his name appears besides Cordelia's in a page about Ylissean bloodlines. “—Odo and Blaggi? I have Blaggi blood in me?”

Lucina glances at Libra's name. “You're not sure?” A second later, a thought occurs, and her blood freezes. People had been tracking them.

Libra shakes his head. “My parents left me at an orphanage before I was old enough to know them. I know nothing of where I came from.” He scans the pages in front of him before pointing out a name in the mess of scribbles. “According to this, Chrom has been blessed with both Baldo and Heim's blood.” He glances up and smiles wryly. “Some people get all the luck.”

Chrom frowns. He crosses his arms. “But what does that mean? Having these bloodlines?”

Libra flips to near the end of the book, quickly paling at the illustrations he find there before he turns the page. “Here is a list of the ...test effects of various lineages. With Blaggi, it seems an immunity to illness and disease as well as rapid physical regeneration are hallmarks of his descendants.” He taps the front of his throat thoughtfully. He says, quietly, “That explains how I survived this.” 

Chrom clears his throat. “I just want to check if this theory is right. How's your hand?”

Libra holds it out to them, a shiny pink welt on his palm where the skin had previously been peeling away. “It's better.”

Chrom stares. “You've treated many injuries during the war. How long should that have taken to heal to that stage?”

Libra looks away. “About three weeks at least, if not more.”

“May I see that?” Lucina huddles close to Severa's father as Chrom moves in on Libra's other side. Her eyes skim notes of barely decipherable quality, the writer clearly not intent on legibility. There are pages fixated on the lineage and the research methods used to test what gifts the descendants of each line inherited. Baldo's, Hezul's, Fala's, and Heim's bloodlines are noted to having high resistance to pain, though Lucina turns her eyes away from where the book described how, in particular, that was found out. She reads through the rest of the sections.

Baldo's bloodlines are noted for being highly desirable in their traits, as their descendants tend to be strong against pain and generally well rounded in many attributes such as above average reaction time with a moderate boost in talents and physical power. Many of them are noted champions and heroes in history, most often commonly acclaimed for their refusal to back down from overwhelming obstacles. 

Heim's descendants resisted pain beyond most people's endurance, and were among the last to give in under repeated torture. Their survival to extreme methods is mentioned to often baffle the researchers. An extensively large amount of notable military and civil leaders in the past have been noted to be of Heim's blood, as the ability to inspire others and create change is a hallmark of this line. They've also been known to have unusually tragic lives or suffer many losses in their paths.

Lucina frowns, “Who is Heim?”

Libra hovers a finger above his name. “The leader of the Twelve Crusaders, and the first man to be blessed with Naga's gifts.” He glances up. “Your ancestor if this book is to be believed.” 

Lucina's cheeks heat. “I don't—that would be quite an honour to be his descendant.”

“Would it?” Libra turns his attention back to the book before him. “It sounds like a curse as well.” 

Lucina makes an unintelligible noise in her throat and continues reading.

Ulir's bloodline is noted for its uncanny luck, and its members are often banned from gambling establishments.

Tordo's line is marked with people in the arts, architecture, and engineering with many of their creations built up with such single-minded skill and beauty that other people who witness them feel like it's been crafted through magic. They've also been more susceptible than other bloodlines to high blood pressure, insomnia, anxiety, depression, and heart problems.

Lucina's eyes catch on a page with fresh, red lines around the word “Odo's linerage.” She reads out the passage, squinting at the tiny writing. “Those in Odo's bloodlines are infamous for their abnormal speed. Under extreme duress, they are able to move up to five times the speed of an normal person, and have been documented to have obscene reaction times—the fastest being 0.05 seconds to a visual stimulus, 0.034 seconds for an audio one, and 0.03 for a touch stimulus. The fastest land animal could move 30 centimetre at their top speed of 120 km/hour in the same amount of time it takes for those of Odo's blood to react to a blow.

“In addition to this, many of Odo's descendants are also notable musicians and athletes along with Ulir's and Tordo's bloodlines, as an unusual ability to have and master many talents is common. Far more become frightening soldiers in times of strife and war.” 

Libra blinks. “That sounds like Cordelia. Her sniping military record still stands as far as I know, and it's near impossible to sneak up on her.” 

And Severa, who's so ridiculously talented but doesn't even notice it. Lucina makes a note to discuss what they've found with her when they get back. She really wants to hear Severa's thoughts on their information. No, she just wants to talk to her again.

She glances down at a page that details the families of Ylisse. Her stomach clenches when she sees Owain's name circled and crossed out in red ink while the words “Baldo” sit next to his name. “That's why they took him. Because of our bloodline.” 

Libra frowns. “I don't mean to be cold, but that does raise the question of why they targeted him and not either you or your brother.”

Lucina exchanges glances with her father before peering closely at the text. Her and Morgan's names beside Owain's remain strangely untouched. Her mother's name above theirs has a question mark beside it, and for some reason, her skin feels like it's crawling away from the words. The sensation gets worse when she reads the writing at the side of the page. 

In the notations is a mention about Grima's bloodlines with many of his line being known for leadership in their own time. Like Heim's descendants, they are known for their resistance to pain but unlike those with Naga's blood who have an extremely high tolerance to it, those of Grima's bloodline have attributed their resistance to a lowered ability to feel pain or lack of it altogether. They've also been marked by an inability to identify and describe their own emotions, and often have difficulty appreciating the emotions of others. Many of them are highly analytical with concrete, realistic thinking and a concerning lack of empathy for others in comparison to the other bloodlines, though there have been exceptions. They have been vaulted in the past as brilliant strategists, and most of the world's chess grandmasters had Grima's blood in one way or another.

Chrom examines the pages on the other side when Libra goes pale and his hands tremble. Lucina spots their expressions and feel fear claw up her belly. “What's wrong?”

Libra points out a couple of words at the bottom, and Lucina shifts over to look at them. Two bright red lines have been circled around Severa's and Noire's names. Besides them is a note scribbled in a flowing script, “Odo and Tordo.” 

She glances up to meet the priest's eyes. “What does that mean?”

Libra closes the book shut, his voice tight. “It means the Grimleal is looking for them, and we need to go back to protect them.” 

He strides forwards towards the darkened end of the room, the tome tucked under one arm, while Chrom and Lucina hurry after him. “We need to return to Ylisse as soon as we can and check on—” He halts, and Lucina nearly runs into his back. 

Her father's voice comes out tight, angry. "Why is this even here?" Curious, she peers over Libra's shoulder as her father swears, and she feels coldness prickle through her veins at the writing on the wall.

Robin's name resides on top of a large piece of parchment, a list of her life written down in meticulous detail down to what she did five days ago.

Below that, a mark of an eye weeping into a six-winged dragon is etched into the wall before them, and the headache behind Lucina's eyes slams her. Her hands clutch her head as pain spikes through her brain as if someone is driving nails through her temples. She stumbles and falls to one knee, hearing the muted shouts from her father and Libra. Her breath goes ragged, and Lucina thinks that this is what her mother goes through every time she has one of her migraines—a pain so bright and vivid that she would tear her own soul in half to make it stop.

She feels a grip on her arm, and the steadiness of her father's hand brings her back to the cold room. “Lucina, what's happening?”

“My head hurts when I look at that,” Lucina pants before gritting her teeth. She glances up and notices that neither of them look as if their heads are splitting. “Why am I the only one that feels like this?”

The men exchanges glances. They look worried. Her father hauls her up and throws one of her arms over his shoulders. “We don't know, but we're going to get you out.” 

Severa's father throws her other arm over the top of his broad back, and they drag her past the parchment, her father snagging it as they march past, and in the darkness, she hears the sound of something following them still, dragging in an odd, limping way. They stop when they reach the end of the room, a barricade of broken shelves blocking the exit while fractured pieces of book stands litter the ground around them. Beyond the shelves stands a rusted, iron ladder that seems to lead upwards. Beside her is a statue of Naga with a broken face where someone has smashed away at the stone with something heavy. 

Her father swears viciously. "It's a trap."

Lucina senses the motion before she sees it. She turns to see a glass container full of yellow liquid arc towards them with everyone darting aside to let it break upon the wooden barricade. The smell hits her a second later. Gasoline.

The fire rushes through the library in a roar, nearly blowing them off of their feet, flames clawing down the sides of the room in searing tongues of orange and red like a beast possessed. It seems unnatural and alive, and the whispers in Lucina's head shrill into delighted shrieks.

Behind them stands a man in tattered robes, who smiles amidst the flames. Lucina would rush to put them out if it wasn't clear that the person is already dead with part of their face eaten away. They stare as the corpse takes a step forward, a grinning skull with tattered skin stretched tight over bone, shoots of red hair standing up from its head. It lets out something like a sigh before folding up in the fire, and Lucina chokes on the smell of ashes and something rotten and wrong like maggots squirming out of a piece of meat.

Fire licks at the trail of gasoline leading up to the barricade. Chrom shouts and hurls her to one side as the fire ignites, racing between them to raise a wall of flames, the heat feeling like it's already peeling the skin away from her face. "Father!"

"Lucina! Get away!" Chrom and Libra pick up the fractured stands and strike at the barricade, smashing through the wood but not fast enough to outpace the fire. They disappear behind a rise of orange flames.

Lucina lifts up the broken stand, a cool metal touch in her hand. She hurls her weight behind the blow into the wood, which groans. A flurry of strikes later, and she's broken through at least one shelf, but there's still two more to go through, and the heat from the flames nearly makes her drop the makeshift weapon. On the side, Naga watches with half of her face intact, the left half crumpled away while the right eye stares, cold and unseeing whether Lucina lives or dies.

Lucina shakes her head, steadying her grip and praying to Naga. She hits the barricade again, the fire crawling closer, its heated breath creeping down the back of her neck. She swears she smells her hair burning, and she thinks of her father and Libra on the other side, trying to fight their way out of a fire that's taking them all. The headaches and whispers spike in her head, overcoming her thoughts with screams that has Lucina reeling. And underneath their taunts, she hears something soothing and calming—the ringing of a clear bell that calls her home and reminds her of the warmth of Naga's churches. She focuses on the sound, a gentle whisper, a promise, and the thought of Severa rushes over her, a tug in her chest that blows away the leers in her head. The bell rings louder, chasing away the screams until a calm warmth fills her chest and her limbs, and Naga, with her broken face, seems to be watching her.

Lucina knows what she has to do. She needs to go home. She needs to return to Severa.

She lifts up the stand over her head, a prickling sensation in her left eye like ink blossoming onto cloth. "This isn't how my story goes! This isn't where my life finishes!" Her eye sears, a tingling along her veins like a breath of air in the midst of smoke. She thinks of her family, of Severa with that beautiful smile once again, and the tingling turns into the sensation of solid steel in her body. “I say when it ends!” 

She cracks the stand down on the barricade, and the force shatters through the groaning wood, snuffing out the fire that dances along the top of it and battering back the flames behind them, which almost seem to pause in their approach. The stand breaks, metal shards splintering, and Lucina hardly cares when the fire between her and her father goes out, rushing over to him as he and Libra stare. 

Chrom shakes his head and shoves her towards the opening she created. "Let's get out of here first!"

She nods and darts through the broken barricade with her father and Libra close behind. She leaps onto the metal ladder and scrambles up, fingers slick with sweat, the sound of crackling wood behind her and the acrid smell of smoke swarming into her nose. She climbs for what feels like an eternity, her limbs growing heavy, and she nearly slips a few times but she can't stop. Not with the lives of the people behind her on her shoulders. 

Her shoulders ache, feeling more like stone than steel, and she nearly bangs her head against the top of the ladder where a cover sits. She shoves against it, groaning as the weight on top gives way, and she's crawling out onto the wooden floor of an abandoned cabin, gasping. She hears her father collapse beside her while Libra falls down on her other side. Shaking, she loops her arms around both of them, pulling them close and ignoring the stinging in her eyes. Smoke climbs out of the hole they've escaped, and Libra kicks the door shut, the tome still under his arm though the edges are singed. How he ever managed to scale a ladder while holding onto it, Lucina doesn't know.

"Lucina." Her father wraps his arms around her, voice thick and gravelly. "I'm sorry. I never should have brought you."

"No, you couldn't predicted that." Lucina sits back, wiping at her cheeks. "You protected me. You threw me ahead of you."

"Still, a father should never put his daughter in danger if he can help it. Not into fire and not with—" He swallows. "—walking corpses."

Libra stands. He looks sick. "That was...that was Father Gregory. What are the Grimleal up to that they summon dead men from their rest?"

Chrom shakes his head. "I don't know. They—" He glances at Lucina and stares at her before grabbing her by the shoulders. “What happened to your eye?”

Lucina blinks. “What do you mean?”

Libra gently shifts Chrom's hands away from her and helps her to her feet, guiding her to a small, hanging mirror. “I think you should see for yourself.” 

Lucina glances at him before peering into it. A mark like a silver tear surrounds her left pupil while a curved shape like a chalice surrounds it. She stares at it until she recalls the symbol on the statue in Libra's church. And down in the tunnels. 

"This is the mark of Naga." Libra says, “Proof of your heritage if you still wish to doubt.” 

Lucina prods at her face. "How did this happen?"

Libra turns away, examining the unused bed in the corner near a bare nightstand. "Some marks have been noted to surface under extreme stress. It appears that yours is one of them." He touches the dusty surface of an empty desk. "This hasn't been used for a while."

Chrom nods, glancing around. "We should leave as soon as possible." He peers out the windows, blinking in confusion before opening the only door leading out. 

Sunlight streams across the sky, chasing down the edge of night while tall trees tower around them. The cabin is situated on a large flat plateau just above the road between Valm and Ylisse known as Lovers' Break, and to their right is a dirt path that leads down into route below them. Lucina steps out, feeling disoriented by the sunrise stretching beyond the horizon, and pulls out her phone to turn it on and glance at the time. It's the next morning, and, somehow, the three of them have lost half a day wandering around in the tunnels, despite feeling like it had only been several hours. Did the underground paths distort their sense of time?

Chrom glances around, taking in the sight of the motorcycle covered under a tarp and buried under a blanket of orange leaves. "Who lived here? Someone watching the roads?"

Libra is next to him, scanning the grounds. "Someone working with the Grimleal who was monitoring traffic, it seems like." 

Chrom reaches into his phone and frowns at something on the screen. His phone rings in his hand and he answers it, walking away for privacy.

Libra turns to her. “Are you okay, Lucina?”

"Yes, I—" She checks her phone and finds out that she's missed over 40 calls. Many of them are from her mother, her father's detectives, and her brother. Some are from her friends from school, and none are from Severa, the last message having been her response to Lucina's reminder. "—I need to make a call. Please excuse me." 

Lucina presses the call button on her phone. When no one answers, she tries several more times. “I can't seem to reach Severa.”

Libra nods, pulling away his own phone from his ear. “Let me know if you get through to her. I'm trying to reach her and my wife, and I'm having the same issue.”

Chrom's voice echoes through the trees, disbelief ringing in his tone. “Frederick, slow down! Crime scene? Someone was killed?” He still faces away from them, but his shoulders creep up towards his neck with every second, tense beyond belief. “Two girls are missing? Who?”

Lucina watches him, and he's still for the longest moment. Something drops out of the bottom of her stomach. He turns, the motion slow as if she's watching him move through water instead of air. He meets her gaze, and by the look in his eyes, Lucina knows.

Something's horrible happened to Severa.


	22. I Will Follow You into the Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa fights De Rais.

De Rais kicks the table at her, and Severa twists to the side. He lunges, blade out, forcing her back. She keeps her wrapped arm in front of her as the knife slices into the red and gold scarf. Severa has never been so appreciative of Lucina's fondness for thick clothing before. 

He slashes again as Severa darts backwards, dodging around him to the kitchen counter where she yanks the knife off of the wooden countertop and faces him. He scoffs at her and spins his blade around his fingers before approaching her. De Rais steps in, only to stagger back as Severa parries his blow with an upward strike. His sneer is interrupted with a set of wild stabs that has him throwing himself back when Severa dashes past. She turns to him, and the grip on his knife tightens. They slash at each other, blades clanging into sparks in the narrow kitchen space and ripping into each other at the slightest opening. 

Lucina's scarf is shredded, hanging onto her arm in bright tatters, blood staining the gold as De Rais' strikes get deeper. Severa pays him back in kind, the sleeves and arms of De Rais' brown shirt lined with sharp cuts, the fabric of his cotton shirt growing soaked. He fumbles his knife occasionally, palm slick with blood sliding down his wrist. 

He growls at her, his stabs growing wilder, harsher. “Got some training, did you?”

Severa deflects a blow at her face before lashing out at his arm, forcing him back with a yelp. “From someone more deadly than you'll ever be.” 

“You seem to forget how much I've given to Grima.” He lunges at her with swings of his knife, and Severa darts back, noticing that she's faster than him. But De Rais is taller. “Do you think you're the first one to fight back?” He grabs her by the collar and steps in to swing the blade into her belly, and Severa punches out her fists to hit just below his elbow, jamming his movement before switching her grip to cut the inside of his forearm. He hollers, and she kicks at his injured knee, feeling him buckle as she twists out of his grip. De Rais slashes at her, but his face twists with pain as he favours his other leg. 

Severa circles around him, slowly. “No, but I'm going to be the one to make you regret every single thing you've done in your short, sad life.” She stares him down, hiding the trembling in her limbs. 

De Rais is frightening, absolutely. But he's not Severa's mother. Cordelia would have killed her five times over in the same amount of time he's taking and given her cooling corpse a lecture about how a knife fight isn't about trash talk and fancy moves—it's about who kills whom first. And she, at least, knows that a fight isn't just about a knife.

Severa swipes out at his face and his thigh, forcing him to stumble back as she sweeps in and crushes her heel into his instep with a quick stomp. She slashes down his collarbone and slides back to dodge his wild counterattack—her mother has done the same movement to her for gods know how many repetitions. He rushes her, stabbing frantically. Severa grabs the handle of the nearby freezer and smashes it into his face as he nears, slicing at his wrist while De Rais recovers and switches hands, cutting a searing line into her shoulder as she stumbles back.

She can't afford to allow him to cut her up from the outside.

De Rais lashes overhead as Severa ducks and carves a line across the inside of his thigh before darting back from a vicious swing. He feints to her right before switching sides and catching her off-guard as he rams her into the kitchen counter so hard the wood rattles. She coughs, her knife flying from her hand as De Rais switches to a hammer grip, and Severa reflectively grabs his arm.

He sneers, dragging the knife upwards at her face while Severa uses both hands to pull him back down. His other hand snatches at her throat. He squeezes, and Severa chokes before he shoves her, banging her against the kitchen cabinet. The cabinet door opens, dislodging Cervantes' book which crashes against his shoulder, staggering him and loosening his grip. Severa uses the moment to tilt his wrist towards him and jam his arm upwards with a strike of her knee. The blade disappears into his shirt, and he hisses, stepping back and yanking it out, flicks of blood splattering the kitchen wall in a messy arc while his face twists into a snarl. He picks her knife off of the floor and steps towards her with Severa wondering if he even felt it. 

“You know, I was trying to go easy on you, since we need you alive. But I really don't care anymore. We'll just take your mother.” He's in her face before Severa can react, and he slashes at her eye. A searing line of agony, fire poured onto a wound, rips down the left side of Severa's face, and she stumbles. De Rais kicks her in the ribs, and Severa gasps, feeling something cracking under his boot as she collapses onto her knees. He lazily raises one knife before glancing out the window at the sound of a car approaching. Shock pops onto his face. Severa takes advantage of his hesitation.

She leaps up, a tight cutting pain in her side that steals her breath, and grabs Noire's kettle from the stovetop, cracking it into the side of his face. De Rais stumbles to the ground, dropping his knives as the blades go spinning across the floor until they land close to the entrance to the living room. He leaps towards them, but the motion feels slow. Severa can see the bunching of his shoulders, the tension in his legs before he jumps, and she wonders why he's flying forward as if he's moving through honey. A heat like liquid fire lights through her veins, and she hits him again with the kettle before his fingers close on the blade, swinging with the full rotation of her waist so quickly that the motion whistles through the air. She hears an awful cracking sound as the metal meets the back of his skull, like an egg being broken open.

He collapses on the ground, clawing at his head as he rolls over. His hand goes to the gun at his waist, and Severa stomps on his bare throat, his nose—the crunching of cartilage beneath the sole of her boot rattling her with her foot surprising her with how deeply it sinks. De Rais clutches at her calf with the other hand and clenches tightly, his blood-stained face alight with fury as he screeches, something guttural and inarticulate like a beast thrashing against cage bars. He lunges upwards towards her, and Severa slams the dented kettle into his broken face, blood and teeth flying across the kitchen floor. In the back of her mind, she knows she shouldn't hit this hard, that it's not even possible for her to do so, but when De Rais rises again, she forgets everything and cracks the kettle into his skull. She does it again when he collapses to the ground. Twice for Owain, once for Noire, once for herself, and one more for everyone he's ever harmed in the name of his sick god. His head bangs against the tiles of Noire's floor with each hit, spiderwebs racing out beneath him from the impact of each blow.

When she finishes, De Rais's fingers twitches, but he stops moving. He doesn't get up. 

Severa drops the destroyed kettle, dented beyond recognition, and heaves. She takes a moment for her vision to clear, and she remembers Noire being taken away. She stumbles towards the front door, legs nearly buckling under her as she hauls herself over the threshold before smashing into a man's chest on her way out. He grunts and holds her away as far as possible while Severa lashes out, her nerves still on liquid fire. The man shouts at her until she's starts to hear coherency in his words, and she realizes that she recognizes the gruffness of his voice.

“Gods, what's happened here?” the bartender from Gaius' bar growls. He eyes her. “Is all of that blood yours?”

Severa glances down, and she feels sick. There's lashes of blood across her chest and legs, and a noticeable streak down one side of her shirt from her face. “...not all of it.”

“Can you even use that left eye anymore?”

Severa's forgotten about it in her attempts to reach Noire. She bites down on her lip to avoid screaming as she gingerly opens her eye before quickly closing it, something hot and sticky dribbling down her brow.

Lon'qu sighs in relief. He steps past her. “Stay here.” His tone so commanding that Severa watches as he disappears into the house, dumbfounded. What is a bartender even doing here?

He reappears after several minutes, a wet towel in one hand and Cervantes' book in the other. He's noticeably paler than when he went in, but sets the tome down as he gestures for her to follow him. “I'll need you to come to the washroom for me to clean that up.”

Severa shakes her head, feeling dizzy. Her thoughts spin, and her vision blurs. “The guy who attacked me is still in there.”

Lon'qu stares at her before shaking his head. “He's not something you'll have to worry about anymore.” He presses the wet towel to her face, and Severa nearly screams at the heat, the pain that splits her face. He instructs her to keep it tight against her eye and guides her into the hallway, past the cellar door, and into Noire's bathroom, which is surprisingly bare. Severa glances into the kitchen to see if Lon'qu is right, and she's surprised to see that De Rais hasn't moved from his spot on the floor. Perhaps, she had knocked him out too hard. She can't really see though. There's far too much blood on his face, and something white and hard jutting through a mess of red with bright splashes of blood arcing across the floor and walls. It looks like a murder scene. 

Lon'qu quickly ushers her past the sight. 

He puts down the toilet lid and gestures for her to sit down on it. He pulls away the towel, white stained with crimson, and stares at her face, prompting Severa to bark at him. “What?”

“I thought that you needed stitches when I first looked at it...” He shakes his head. “No matter.”

“But De Rais—”

“He won't be getting up again.” Lon'qu's voice is quiet, gruff, but there's an edge of something bordering on awe in it that has Severa uneasy. “Who taught you to fight like that?”

“My mother.” Severa recalls De Rais' words about Cordelia and leaps to her feet. “She's—” 

“Going to be here shortly.” He places his hands on her shoulders and pushes her down. “Sit. I'm cleaning your wound before you lose that eye to infection.”

“We have to save Noire! They took her!” She raises her fists to thump his chest, but Lon'qu catches her wrists.

He growls, “Undersheriff William has already been notified of an attack here and is spearheading the effort to block all available routes out of town. You may lose an eye if that's not treated properly. You're no good to anyone right now.” 

Severa stares at his neck where a scar runs down his collarbone, much like the one she gave De Rais. “Why are you here?”

“Your mother and Tharja were attacked by some of the sheriff's deputies on their way from the shop next door. Reinforcements came to help them out, but your mother requested that I go immediately to find you and your friend.”

“Why?” Severa's voice sounds funny, like she's hearing it from outside of herself. “Why would she send you?

He pulls back, gazing at her for a long time before he reaches into his jacket and pulls out a badge. A golden symbol in the shape of shield with five gems glints in the fading sunlight from a window beside them. “I work for the Emblem to track down eliminate the Grimleal. If there's anyone she should send, it would be me.”

“So, where were you earlier? Why did you wait so long?” She hears her voice going ragged, hoarse. “You could have saved Noire.” He could have saved her.

“I wasn't here. Clearly.” He pauses. “I'm sorry. For what it's worth.” He turns on the facet and gestures for her to bring her face closer. “Your friend would not want you to lose your eye out of stupidity.”

Severa scowls but leans over the sink anyway, her movements unsteady as though her muscles are giving out on her. The water hits her face with a sting that makes her bite her lip, and she closes her right eye. Lon'qu lets the tap run for a minute before turning it off and pressing a fresh towel to her wound. Severa holds the cloth to her eye as the agent fishes through Noire's medicine cabinet to pull out gauze and lotion in a brown bottle that has her leaning away.

“It's antiseptic lotion. You need it.” He takes the cloth from her, pouring some of the contents of the brown bottle onto it. Severa hisses when he presses it against her brow. "Hold this," he orders as he pulls gauze tape from the cabinet. He carefully places the makeshift bandage over her eye, surprisingly gentle. “I have to put it over everything, despite only your eyebrow being cut. You're lucky it didn't go deeper.”

It's disorienting only having vision from one side, but Severa touches the side of her face feeling the cool, bumpy texture of gauze and tape. Her face throbs, and there's pain in her side when she breathes.

Lon'qu checks her pulse, feels her forehead. He shakes his head, reaching into his jacket for a meal bar in silver wrapping and handing it to her. “Eat this.”

“Are you kidding me? I can't sit here!”

“You're useless right now as you are.” He gestures to her hands, which shake so badly, she can't hold onto what he's given her. “You need your energy to think clearly.” 

“I don't—”

“Listen—” He steps into her space, glowering, “—your skin is clammy, and you look like you're about to pass out. Plus, from the sounds of it, you can barely breathe. Take care of yourself first." He glances at her and softens. "C'mon. We'll wait for your mother at the front."

Severa just finishes the bar when Cordelia's blue jeep pulls up, its side riddled with bullet holes. The occupants rush out of their vehicle with Tharja ignoring Lon'qu and Severa as she bolts into the house while holding a shotgun, smoke still wafting from its barrels. Cordelia vaults over the side of her jeep and races towards Severa, her hands grabbing at her daughter's arms, her face. Her voice comes out high. “What happened to your eye?”

Lon'qu steps besides them, Cervantes' book in one hand. “One of suspected corrupted deputies attacked her in the house. He's... incapacitated permanently, but your daughter has a laceration in her left eyebrow. I dressed the wound, and it's already healing.” He eyes Severa's bandage. “It'll leave a scar though.” 

Cordelia yank her into a hug so tight that Severa cries out in pain. She immediately lets go, alarmed. “What's wrong?”

Lon'qu eyes as Severa holds her side, gasping, “Cracked rib, probably. Nothing we can do about it.”

Cordelia's expression tightens. “Which deputy attacked her?”

Severa croaks, “De Rais. He's still in there.”

Cordelia pulls her gun out of her holster when Lon'qu halts her by stepping in front of her. He says, “He's not a threat anymore.” When Cordelia gives him a confused look, he moves away. “See for yourself.” 

She nods, chin tucked tightly to her neck before she proceeds to the house, calling out to Tharja to let her know that she's entering. Lon'qu and Severa watch her go in while the latter holds her side. After some time, she asks, quietly, “What did you mean he's not a threat?”

Lon'qu turns his head to gaze at her. Before he can answer, Cordelia stumbles out of the house, expression wide-eyed and sick. She stares at Severa for a long moment before she wraps her daughter in a hug while being careful of her ribs. “I'm so sorry that I wasn't here. I should have protected you.”

“Not everything is about you,” Severa snarls weakly, but the concern in her mother's voice undoes her. She wipes at her eyes. “I handled myself.”

“Yes, you did. You did so well, my brave little girl.” Cordelia brings their foreheads together until they rest against one another. “I'm so proud of you defending yourself and escaping with your life. It must have been so scary.”

“Don't patronize me! I'm not a c-child,” Severa sniffles as she buries her face into her mother's shoulder. “It wasn't that scary! Anyone could do it. I—” She coughs and brushes at her cheeks, her fingers coming away wet. “...I thought I would die. I thought he would win.” 

Cordelia brushes back her hair. “He didn't. You did.” But she looks so sad, her eyes searching Severa's face. She opens her mouth to say something when Tharja stalks into the doorway, bristling in a way that makes Severa back away. 

Tharja locks her sight on Severa and storms towards her. When she reaches her, she thrust her face in close, her voice reminiscent of a tensing viper. “Where is my daughter?”

Cordelia turns to shield her, but Tharja shoves her aside, her stare burning into Severa. “Did they take her?”

Severa trembles. She lift her eyes to meet Tharja's briefly, flushing and dropping her gaze when she does. She nods once, and Tharja stares at her before yanking the heavy tome from Lon'qu's hand and bolting towards her clunker. Cordelia shouts for her to stop while Lon'qu sprints towards her, but Tharja's taking off and streaking towards the mountain roads.

Lon'qu swears and comes back to the front of the house. "We need to go after her and retrieve that book." He glances at Severa. "And we take her with us."

Cordelia stands in front of her daughter protectively. “She needs to go to the hospital and get medical atten—”

“Do you really think that the Grimleal aren't staking out the hospitals as well?” He meets Cordelia's gaze. "Do you honestly believe that she'd be safer in any other hands besides yours or mine?" When she doesn't answer, he continues, "Chances are that the Grimleal are fleeing towards Plegia or towards a transfer point, and that woman will be on their heels. We need someone who knows every road and every shortcut in order to catch up.”

Something clicks together in her thoughts, and Severa stands, something hot and fierce thrumming through her body like an inferno flooding her. It feels like she's fighting De Rais all over again. “I do. I know the roads better than either of you here.”

The two adults go silent and eye her. Lon'qu's appraisal is silent and his look unreadable, but Cordelia looks like she wants to argue, her brows furrowing. Severa tenses, bracing herself for an argument when her mother's shoulders slump.

Cordelia looks proud, but she also looks so sad. Defeated. “You're right. We need you.” 

Lon'qu cocks his head, studying her. "If we do this, we need to go now. Turn off your phone in case the Grimleal is tracking you on it. Take anything you need. We won't be coming back." He heads to the car while Severa remembers her bag in her convertible and goes to grab it. A minute later, she throws it into the back seat of Cordelia's jeep, the weight of the gun inside bouncing against her hip all the way to her mother's car. She stares at a polished sniper rifle sticking up from the back seat and opens her mouth to ask about it before changing her mind. Severa pulls out her phone and stares at it for so long that Lon'qu barks at her until she shuts it off and slides into the car, staring upwards.

The sun is starting to set behind the mountains, a kiss of red and pink against the orange sky, and Severa's breath gets colder, harder. The chill in the air heightens like winter's coming for them, and night crawls up from the other side of the horizon. She adjusts the mirror and the seat, feeling the ache in her side soften into a dull throb. 

Lon'qu points towards the creeping darkness in the west, taking a seat in the back. “Plegia's over there. We'll need to cut them off at the border pass.” He draws his gun. “And we'll need to be free to defend ourselves should the Grimleal try to take you again.”

Cordelia slips beside her, pulling her sniper rifle from the back seat with her. She nods at Severa, and the latter takes control of the jeep. The car pulls away from Tharja's house, and in the quiet of the hum of the engine, Cordelia says, quietly. "I never wanted this for you."

"I know." Severa accelerates as the heat smoulders along her veins. "It's not like it's your fault that I got pulled in."

Cordelia makes an unconvinced noise in her throat. Severa doesn't know what to say, so she stares ahead, the engine alive beneath her hands as the woods blur into a mess of greens and browns.

She's going to save Noire. At all costs.


	23. In the End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa, Cordelia, and Lon'qu catch up to the car that was carrying away Noire, and Severa makes a decision between two impossible choices.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, friends. I've been swamped with much new stuff, and I had not been able to schedule some time to sit down and write for a while. New job, new relationship, new phone, new bottom-line personality...lots of changes.
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy the long-awaited chapter.

The ride to find Noire is silent, save for the hum of the jeep speeding through hidden roads and pathways. They lead through a forest brimming with leaves as bright as the blood Severa leaves behind in the broken house and as suffocating as a heavy white cloth laid on her face. 

Cordelia glances frequently at Severa—an odd, sad look on her face that the latter ignores. Severa keeps her sight on the road, and despite the dying light of day, her vision is sharp and strangely unhindered by the loss of one eye. Something thrums through her, a steady heat that has her feeling like they are driving too slow, despite the blurring of the trees around them as Severa follows the curves of the road as tightly as a surgeon to a stitch. 

Lon'qu has not said a word and neither has Cordelia, which leaves Severa alone with her thoughts. She refuses to think about what happened, about how she let Noire get taken, about the awful silence of De Rais after she finished hitting him, the lashes of blood across the floor and walls as if an explosion had gone off. There's a realization in her mind at the scene she left behind, but Severa shoves it down, leaving it for another time when Noire is safe and home.

Cordelia shifts, staring straight ahead. She asks, “You're not okay, are you?”

“No. But that doesn't matter.”

“It does. You matter.” 

Severa scoffs. Her left eye throbs, and her right one blinks away the moisture in it. “No, I'm fine. I'm alive. Noire—” She chokes. “—she was hurt badly when they took her. She hit her head. There was blood.” Severa lapses into silence, her throat closing. 

Cordelia seems to understand. She reaches over and squeezes her daughter's wrist, and the young girl swallows back a cry. “We'll get her back.”

Severa's knuckles tighten on the wheel. “What if we can't save her? What if we lose her?”

“We will find her. There's no other way to proceed.”

“But what if we don't? What if things don't work out?” What if Severa is the kind of person who doesn't get a happy ending?

In the silence with only the hum of the engine, Cordelia says, quietly, “Sometimes, goodbye is the only way to go. Sometimes, it's the only way we know.”

A shot shatters the right side mirror, and Cordelia ducks, snatching up her sniper rifle as Lon'qu fires into the trees. There's a muffled shout and a thud as something falls from the branches. Severa looks back, and Lon'qu barks at her. “Keep your sight ahead!”

She snaps back, hand tight on the wheel as the sound of Lon'qu's gun goes off. She pushes the car as safely as it'll go on the uneven dirt road as trees whip by. Shots pepper the ground around her, and Severa swears at the straight stretch of road they happen to be on. Her mother turns and levels her sniper rifle, quickly firing off shots like she's shooting at a range instead of a darkened forest out of a speeding car. 

Severa snaps, voice harsh and loud, “Don't you want to aim?”

Cordelia loads another shot. “I am.” The sniper rifle goes off, and another thud is heard somewhere. “Keep driving. It's almost over.” 

Severa accelerates until a curve around a cliff comes into view, and she slows down enough to barely skirt the bend, nearly skidding off of the road before she straightens out the jeep. She doesn't hear any more gunshots, and after a few seconds, she asks, “What was that?”

Lon'qu checks his ammo. “A trap. Not too poorly laid out either.”

Cordelia frowns, brows furrowing. “They knew someone would take this path. Or suspected it at least.”

Severa's arms tremble. She coughs and sits up straighter. “It's a main road. I can stay off of those.”

Lon'qu nods. “Do that. We don't need to waste time dealing with this.” He glances at the darkening sky above them. “Though night might be an advantage for us.” 

Severa doesn't get what he means, but she's looking ahead like he told her to. She thinks of Noire and presses down on the accelerator. In the mess of trees around them, the road is only lit by the headlights of Cordelia's jeep, but Severa strangely has no issues scanning the path in front of her as if she's seeing them in the fleeting seconds of dusk. Cordelia and Lon'qu also have little trouble with their vision if the way their eyes flick casually at the passing trees is any indication. It's odd, considering that it's dim enough to need a flashlight, but Severa had always had good sight at night. She supposes that it's not weird that they might have it too.

Lon'qu breaks the silence, startling Severa who nearly drives them off of the road. He addresses her mother. “What are your plans for when we find them?”

Cordelia sighs, “Get Severa to block their path if that's possible. If necesary, I'll open fire on it and aim for the engine.”

Lon'qu grunts, “It's nearly impossible to shoot accurately at a moving car from one.”

“Impossible for the people you know.” Cordelia brushes her hair from her face. “However, it is also police protocol not to shoot at one, because there are too many risk factors.”

Severa frowns. “Couldn't you just shoot out the tires?”

“It's not a movie, Severa. It's dangerous to shoot at a moving car, because you may miss and hit someone innocent. And hitting a tire doesn't guarantee that it may deflate, and if it does, it makes the driving path of the vehicle very unpredictable. It would be better for the jeep to nudge the car and cause it to spin out of control without crashing.” 

Lon'qu points out, “There's also a chance that you'll miss and hit the hostage.”

“I don't miss.” Cordelia rubs at the bridge of her nose. “I may have to return fire if it comes to that though.” 

Lon'qu crosses his arms. “Don't hesitate.”

Cordelia shakes her head. “I don't.”

“Wait.” Severa breaks into the conversation, and the adults turn to her. “Where's Noire's mother?”

Cordelia frowns. “I don't know. She might be trying to cut off the kidnappers. She's always been rather unpredictable.” 

Severa snorts. It sounds weak. “Yeah, well. It's not like she ever cared about Noire, is it?”

Cordelia gives her a strange look that Severa can't quite decipher. “Tharja is...not the best at showing her affections, but she's a mother, Severa, as I am.” She looks at her daughter, and guilt sinks into her expression. “I haven't been a good one as of late. This is my responsibility for setting things into motion with the lay-offs.”

“Don't say that!” Severa hisses. Her throat closes up. “This was my fault. I let them take Noire. And De Rais...” Her voice drops, cracks. 

In the back of her mind, Severa knows what she did to him.

“He paid the price of his decisions.” Cordelia lays a gentle hand on her arm, and Severa's eyes burn. “No one escapes the consequences of their choices. Not in the long run.” She turns to the agent in the backseat, and there's something sharp and hard in her voice like a broken piece of flint. “Isn't that right?”

Lon'qu stares straight ahead. His gaze is faraway. “We don't get to run from what we chose to do.”

They fall into silence. Severa doesn't try to break it.

It takes another ten mintues of speeding until they see something in front of them. Ahead of them is a non-descript brown car, and Cordelia stiffens. “That's them. That's the unmarked police vehicle that the department uses.” She turns to Severa. “Can you pull up to them and nudge them off of the road?”

Severa nods. She presses on the accelerator, gaining on the vehicle until something cracks the windshield in front of her and she nearly spins the car off of the road.

Lon'qu roars, “Damn! They're shooting at us.”

Cordelia goes quiet. “They really don't care, do they?” She stands, lifting her weapon to her shoulder. 

Severa's breath tightens. “What are you doing? You might hit Noire.”

Cordelia brings her rifle to her eye, steadying herself against the frame of the jeep. “I only hit who I mean to hit.” She stares ahead even as a bullet glances off of the metal framework beside her. “Please, trust me. Just drive.” 

Severa swears and turns to the road, keeping her eye on the vehicle in front of them. She hisses in the dark of the night, the white plume of her breath whipping by as they speed down the road. The left side of her face begin to throb as she watches Cordelia steady herself and her rifle against the jolts of the jeep down the dirt pathway. Her mother takes her breaths slowly. A second later, she pulls the trigger.

There's a deafening crack that nearly blows out Severa's eardrums, and the car of them jerks to the left. A figure leans out the car window and fires shots that scatter across the road and the trees. Cordelia pulls the trigger again, and the figure's hand disappear in a burst of red. The brown car skids as they withdraw and several more lean out the side windows and shoot wildly at the jeep.

Cordelia fires off more rounds, a figure cold and steady as she tilts slightly to the left or the right to avoid stray shots. Severa's shoulders tense as she focuses on her breathing and the path ahead. The road flattens out into an ugly, mean curve with a ditch on one side, a tower of trees on the other, but there's a dark gap ahead of the brown car in which two odd lights seem to grow bigger until they flare out onto the path like searchlights.

Tharja's clunker comes screaming out of the dark woods and hits the other car in the side doors, sending it skidding in a wild arc into the ditch where it stops. She leaps out of the car, whose hood lets out an awful black smoke, and races down towards the roadside furrow. 

A dark figure in the shape of a man leaps out of the car with a gun held up towards the charging woman. Severa's mother turns almost imperceptibly to the right, and his head explodes in a bright shower of crimson before the body drops to the ground. Cordelia pulls the trigger twice more as two more men crawl out of the car, and by the time Tharja reaches the wrecked vehicle, the ground is splattered with bits of bone and brain. Severa stops the jeep some distance from the smoking clunker, and Lon'qu is vaulting out before she fully stops. He bolts towards the woman below them, but Tharja is already pulling out a man who struggles to keep his head from lolling limply.

Severa and Cordelia arrive at the crashed car as Lon'qu nearly yanks the man from Tharja's grip, who seems hellbent on shaking him for all the information he has. 

Tharja hisses, fingers snapping out to dig into his throat while the man turns purple. “If you don't tell me where you took my daughter, you will wish that the only thing I did was kill you.” 

Lon'qu grunts, pulling the man back who wheezes at the release. “He's an accomplice. We need him alive for information, and I'm putting him under the Emblem's protection.”

Tharja sneers, pretty features twisting into something that makes Severa's stomach grow cold. “You guard a dead man.”

“Is that a threat?”

“No. Just a fact.” Tharja stares at the man in Lon'qu's grip with something like pity. “Now that he's been caught, the Grimleal will do everything they can to take his life. And he will thank them for it.” 

Lon'qu's upper lip curls. “And you know about them.”

Noire's mother sneers, “I think it's obvious why.” She steps forward, and Severa instinctively darts back. She pulls back one of her sleeve, exposing the inside of her left wrist where a patch of pale, discoloured skin sits. “The Grimleal brand all of their dogs. I just chose to remove mine.”

Severa feels sick, her stomach twisting as she looks at Noire's mother, unable to meet her stare. Tharja is quiet rage and relentless fury combined. She tucks her chin to her throat, voice low. “They took my daughter. I will kill them where they stand.” 

No one gets a chance to answer when the smoking blue car with the dented fender goes up in flames. Cordelia yelps and races back up the ditch towards it while Lon'qu and Tharja glare at one another. Severa turns from the scene, moving back towards the car when Cordelia, shaking her head, comes back down and stops Severa with a hand on her chest. “There's nothing we can do except let it burn.”

She points towards the car, and Severa tilts her head upwards to look. Tharja's clunker is a fireball with twisted orange tongues that stretch up towards the sky. She watches the car burn with the others, uneasiness settling in her stomach. It feels like an omen. “Won't it explode?”

Cordelia shakes her head. “It's very rare that cars actually do. No, it'll burn down until it looks like it did.”

They stand together, watching the fire consume the car in a bright ball, and Severa's startled by how high the flames reach, as if clawing at the sky of their own will. She thinks about Lucina in Valm, and her stomach twists. She hopes she's all right.

Severa and Cordelia turn from the burning spectacle and make their way back to the others. Tharja and Lon'qu glare at the man between them, awake with his eyes darting quickly between the two.

Tharja does something to the inside of his elbow, and the man cries out. He jerks back from her while Lon'qu growls and thrusts the crawling man closer to Tharja who pulls out a small knife from a pocket on her dark dress.

The man shouts, his words slurring, “I told you everything already! We dropped her off at the Southtown crossing.” His head droops to the side. He struggles to keep it up. “We were supposed to meet at the border pass when we were done."

Lon'qu gazes at him dispassionately. “He won't last long.”

Tharja steps towards, flicking her knife up, and Severa flinches at the glint of the blade. “I don't need long.”

The man's eyes bulges. He thrashes, but Lon'qu is immovable. At length, he watches Tharja's knife grow closer and laughs crazily, a crest of terrified giggling as he stares at something behind her. The man cackles—a wild, desperate sound, pointing past them towards the eastern sky. 

They look up at a sky lit with orange and red sparks, a roar of smoke gushing upwards in a furious column like a volcano hurling ash into a smouldering cloud. The smoke choke the sky, twisting into shades of purple and black like a bruise in the night. The fire's coming from the direction that Chrom, Severa's father, and Lucina headed in.

Valm's in flames.

Severa rushes to the car and hops into the driver's seat when she feels a grip on her shoulder. “Let go of me!”

Cordelia's voice is cool, tight. “Where are you going?”

“To save Lucina! To save Dad! Your boss, the sheriff?” Severa snarls. She yelps when Cordelia yanks her out of the car, forcing her to her feet. “What are you doing? We need—”

“I understand the implications very well.” Cordelia's knuckles blanch. There's an unforgiving line to her eyes. “But what are we doing right now?”

“What does that matter? Lucina and Dad—”

“Who are we trying to help right now?”

Severa's mouth snaps shut. Something in her chest grows tight and cold. “But we need to rescue everyone in Valm!” Her voice sounds thin, on the edge of breaking like a cracking pane of glass.

Cordelia steps in, her eyes glinting like armour in the light of the nearby fire.“If you go to them, who's left to save Noire?”

The weight of the silence between them is crushing.

Cordelia gently lays her hands on Severa's shoulders, bringing one up to brush at her daughter's tears. She repeats, “Who does Noire have who'll come for her?”

“Tharja,” Severa says, weakly. 

“Is she enough against an unknown enemy?”

Severa doesn't say anything, and Cordelia turns away to gaze at the massive plume of smoke and eerie orange glow in the east. When she turns back, she doesn't hide the wet gleam in her eyes. “I'm making the call now, because the consequences for the decision are too much for you.” She turns abruptly and moves towards her jeep. “We go to save Noire. The sheriff, Lucina, and—” Her voice cracks. “—your father will have to rely on the themselves or the undersheriff's backup to rescue them. Undersheriff William will have already sent officers to their location.”

“Gods, are you so cold? You'd throw away Dad's life?”

Cordelia whips around, her tone as hard as a vicious slap. “Severa, are you so reckless that you'll let your emotions distract you from the right thing to do? By the time, we get to Valm, everything will be over while the people we're tracking will have gotten away.” She pauses. “When you have the responsibility to lead, you don't get to give into your emotions anymore.” 

She steps back, and Severa watches in a daze as shadows flicker across her face, the bright red of her mother's hair nearly glowing like the fire in the sky. The points of the golden badge on Cordelia's shirt are sharp and cold. They're unrelenting in their dispassionate judgment. “As Assistant Sheriff, I'm making this call. We're going after Noire.”

Severa croaks, her throat tight. She thinks of Lucina burning in the night. “Gods, thanks for the choice.”

Her mother glances at her. Cordelia gathers Severa's hands in hers, and in the flickering of the light nearby, they almost look the same. She squeezes, and Severa wonders when her mother's hands had gotten so small. “If you go to Lucina, Noire will die. If you go after Noire, everyone in Valm may perish or they may survive. Tell me, what's the right thing to do in this case? Who deserves our mercy more?”

“No one! Gods, this is an impossible choice!” Severa wipes at her eyes, jumping away. “How could you make me choose?”

“Because you asked, Severa.” Cordelia shrugs, a mournful lift of her shoulders. “I'm going you the choice, so you understand the price of each decision. When you're in charge, you don't get to fall apart. Choose the right thing to do, Severa. Who are you going to help tonight?”

Severa turns and stares at the voluminous mass rising from Valm. She twists and faces the other direction in the south, a path clustered deep in the forest away from the fire burning in the east. She thinks of Noire limp in the deputy's arms, blood trailing down her face, and Severa's stomach drops. She recalls Lucina's breath catching when she kisses her in the library, the way she kept watching Severa when they parted as if it would be the last time Lucina would see her. She wonders what her father would say is the correct thing to do in this case, and as her thoughts swirl in her head, she recalls Noire's fragile smile on the mountaintop so many nights ago and of Lucina's promise to her. She remembers Noire throwing her arms around her, whispering how Severa was her only friend, and the redhead breaks her own heart with her choice.

Severa's voice cracks against the pitiless silence of the night. She swallows back a sob, choking. “I'm sorry, Lucina. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.” 

She turns away from Valm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For this story in the arc I've planned, there's only two chapters left. There will be a sequel. Don't panic.


	24. Shadow of the Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Severa, Cordelia, Lon'qu, and Tharja drive towards Southtown Crossing where Tharja recounts living in Plegia, and they siege against the Grimleal hideout that has Noire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all your patience, and I hope you enjoy this chapter as always.

Severa drives towards Southtown with her mother beside her, Tharja brooding in the back while Lon'qu leans so far away from her that he's nearly out of the jeep.

Tharja had plucked Cervantes' book from the ashes of her clunker, the gold on the book gleaming brightly as if the fire had polished and woken the metal. As Severa drives, she glances at the tome over her shoulder, because it makes no sense that a book of that size and age would not be destroyed. 

Tharja catches Severa gaping. “You don't know what this is, do you?”

Severa bristles. “So, what is it? Are you going to tell us?”

“The Mjölnir. A child of a priest should know what that means.” Tharja's tone sends irritation sparking up Severa's back like a cat rubbed the wrong way.

Severa snarls, “How can the Mjölnir survive a fire?”

Tharja's expression is flat. “Why would mortal flames burn an immortal's weapon?”

“Stop answering my questions with a question!” Severa snaps.

Tharja ignores her. She opens the tome, touching the pages while reverence creeps into her eyes. The expression of respect looks downright unsettling on her.

Severa scoffs. “Do you even know how to use that?”

Tharja flips a page, and Severa swears she sees the crackling of something electric between her fingers. “I've had training in how to use it.”

Lon'qu shifts. “Training?”

“Yes.” Tharja closes the Mjölnir. “A high priestess of Grima receives knowledge into all of the holy weapons from the Grimleal priesthood.” 

Severa brakes immediately, and her seatbelt bites into her torso as she's thrown forward. Her thoughts spin in her head. “You were a high priestess?”

“In training,” Tharja sighs. “I left before I could complete it. The Grimleal do not look upon traitors lightly.” 

Cordelia glances at Severa, killing the retort on the girl's tongue. “Could you tell us more about your life there?” She nudges her daughter, who remembers that she's supposed to be driving and starts the engine again. ”What was growing up with the Grimleal like?”

Tharja peers out into the darkness, hand cupping her chin as she looks off into the passing woods like she's searching for answers. She doesn't seem able to find them. “In Plegia, Grima is the only kind of holy known, and there is no room for nonbelievers. In everything, we thank Grima and we are taught our lives belong to him, for he created us. Thus, our purpose is to bring glory to him.” 

Cordelia prompts, “What about your family?”

“I didn't have a mother or a father. The Grimleal was the only family I knew.” A long pause. “I had been raised in the priesthood for as long as I can remember. Perhaps, the inner circle killed them and took me when they saw I had aptitude they wanted. It doesn't matter at this point. Whether you believe it or not, I grew up content in the priesthood. At the time of the war, I served in Grima's army and killed many people with the techniques the Grimleal taught me.”

Lon'qu crosses his arms. “I know. One of my missions was to assassinate you.” 

Tharja sneers, “Which you tried.” She gestures to one of his forearms, which he shifts from her sight. “How did that wound on your arm heal?”

Cordelia coughs gently, getting their attention. “Back to your story, if you grew up happy in the Grimleal's inner circle, why did you leave?”

“I never said I was happy.” Tharja glowers at the back of Cordelia's seat. “But I was fed, had a roof over my head, and was more educated than most of my peers who also lived in the same temple.”

Severa cuts in, “Wait, you grew up in a temple?”

“Did you not?” Tharja dismisses Severa's retort with a wave of her hand. “Irrelevant matter.” She leans back. “As a high priestess, you were expected to pass along the knowledge of Grima to the flock, especially to newcomers. At higher levels, you were expected to give—” Tharja's eyes flicker, “—reminders to those who doubt. Often, there were many, and not all of them came back from their...sessions.”

Severa opens her mouth when her mother shoots her a sharp look. She shuts it as Cordelia peers curiously at the brooding woman behind her. “What were your temples like? How were you supposed to pass the knowledge along?” 

In Severa's rearview mirror, she sees Lon'qu shut his eyes as if he has a headache while Tharja peers out into the woods. Her mouth curls up in a contemptuous line as if Cordelia's questions are a waste of her time. It's to everyone's surprise that she answers. 

“In Plegia, the temples are the cleanest buildings in all of the city. The marble is washed daily and sparkles as white as bone in the desert sun. Contrary to popular opinion here, Plegia actually has hills of green—rich grapevines and olive oil trees that jut out in patches just inside the city walls. Outside the walls lies a sea of sand so vast that one could see a runaway for days. I would often skulk around the plateau of temples built atop a mountain of huge, stone steps on the highest hill. The area was known as the Dragon's Table.

“Few dare venture to the temples unless seeking the guidance of a member of the priesthood and for good reason—most were quite mad.” Tharja lowers her eyes, tapping a finger along one cheekbone as if in deliberation. “Children were selected for the priesthood by their reactions to Grima's ornaments and baubles, his weapons and his city. It is said that Plegia is built on the remains of Grima, his bones forming the walls that divide us from the desert. Those who reacted violently to the parts of the city where Grima's breath was said to be the strongest were hauled off to an unknown place. Those who greeted Grima with bliss and wonder were carried off to the temples to train.”

Severa can't stand the detailed narrative. She asks, “What does that have to do with you being a priestess?” 

Tharja sneers, “A member of the priesthood is a conduit between Grima and this world. They are dreamers who open portals into the Old World—a place of nightmares where he came from. At the height of their training and power, they are expected to sacrifice themselves to make the opening between this world and the other one a little bigger, so that Grima may one day slip through.” 

Her dark eyes gleam bright like an animal's in the night. It makes Severa uneasy. “The leader of the priests had a daughter who was whisked away by someone trusted when she was an infant. The war began in his grief to find her and in his ambition. He realized that he could please Grima with the blood of his oppressors' children, their lives cracking the portal open with every drop spilt. He never found his daughter and was murdered by Sable of the Emblem.” She glances at Lon'qu, amused, while he stiffens. “Or so the story goes. In truth, he had planned to raise himself with Grima's spirit from the start of that final battle. He just hadn't planned to be an imperfect vessel that took over ten years to limp home to Plegia. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

“I returned home a vaulted veteran of the war and was left alone in the temples' libraries to study while the priesthood stitched their tattered remnants together. I was given leeway into indulging in my hobbies of the dark arts and tomes about the holy weapons while the priests squabbled for a new leader. A couple of years later, I met my husband when he rose into the high priesthood from an unknown place. He had set tongues aflutter with gossip and jealousy with his sudden ascent. He was...persistent and unusual—the strangest man I've ever met, but I was drawn to him. He didn't want for lack of talent in our trade. Against my will, I began to love him, and we married shortly afterwards.” 

Tharja's silent for a long time. Severa grits her teeth and turns to inquire what happened next when Cordelia shakes her head. Fuming, she turns her eye back to the road and waits. She shoves the thoughts of Lucina out of her head.

Tharja's voice comes out slow, almost hesitant. “I never wanted a daughter. I didn't think I was suited to become a mother.” 

Severa snorts, and Cordelia glances at her sharply. Tharja ignores her. “But my husband was so persistent in having a child. It had been his dream to have a family, and in my foolishness, I succumbed to the weakness of my heart.” She drums her fingers along the outside of the jeep. “I gave him a daughter.” 

Lon'qu scoffs, “Priests are allowed to marry and have children in the Grimleal?”

“Yes. It's not the prudish atmosphere of Ylisse priesthood. Priests are allowed to have children as long as they remember to give them to Grima when he asks for them.” Tharja glances away, her voice quiet.

She continues, “Noire's birthmark emerged when I caught her playing in the temples' gardens. She had been chasing a blue and black butterfly across the square when she tripped and began sobbing. Honestly, that child was so frail, it's a miracle she survived infancy with her weak stomach.” Tharja inhales and presses two fingers against the bridge of her nose. “I had strolled over to pick her up when I saw something on her shoulder blade—a mark like a ragged sun that froze me to the spot. It had resembled the drawings of Tordo's legendary mark.”

She opens her eyes, murmuring dreamily. “A priestess owes her life and possessions to Grima. From him comes all things and to him all things must go.” She shakes her head. “Validar had returned home at this point and decreed that we would continue the child hunts to bring glory to Grima, and that anyone with a child of a god must return them to him. He began to ask the high priests first if they knew of any such children.” 

Tharja straightens up, drawing her cloak over herself as if she's cold. “I don't need to tell you what happened next. In that instant, I chose my daughter over my god. I became a traitor against everything I was raised for, and I'd do it again to get Noire away from there.”

Severa glances up into the rearview mirror, surprised. Tharja continues to speak as if they aren't there. “I left immediately, packing enough water and sustenance to survive in the desert. I fled the city in the back of a dirty caravan with Noire in my lap and crying into me. My husband did not come with us.”

Cordelia gazes at Tharja. Her expression is soft. “You left without talking to him.”

“I couldn't take that risk that he would value our heritage over our daughter.” Tharja shrugs. She seems smaller than what Severa remembers, more human. “Sometimes, goodbye is the only way to go.”

The echo of Cordelia's earlier words twists itself into Severa's stomach. She feels sick. “You gave up the worship of your god so easily?”

Tharja shrugs. “Is that hard to believe the human heart is so fickle? So apt to change love from one source to another?”

Cordelia shakes her head. “No, love doesn't change that easily. If it did, the truth is that you never loved your god at all.”

Tharja's eyes widen. She looks thoughtful. “It's true. I've lived my entire life in fear from Grima, but the priesthood was the only family I had. Until Noire.” She draws a long breath, and whatever human thing had been in Tharja's eyes vanishes. They grow cold and bitter—dark as the growl in her voice. “The Grimleal decided to take my daughter, so I'll repay them in kind and take their lives.” 

Severa shivers.

Tharja's eyes snap to her. “You, daughter of the priest. Are you aware of the power of the holy weapons?” She lifts up the tome with gold bindings beside her, the metal glinting in the darkness. “Do you even know what that is?”

Severa scowls and glances over her shoulder. “You called it the Mjölnir, the Book of Wrath and weapon of Tordo. It was rumoured to help him strike his enemies with lightning.”

“It's no rumour.” Tharja caresses the spine of the red tome, and light flickers between her fingertips. “I'll show you when we arrive.”

Tharja doesn't say another word until they arrive near Southtown Crossing when she suddenly shifts, almost falling out of the jeep as she jabs at a destination in the woods. “There. I recall one of our bases being in that direction.”

Lon'qu exchanges glances with Cordelia as the latter shakes her head slightly. Severa frowns at their exchange when Tharja jostles her shoulder and points at a cluster of trees with trunks as wide as their vehicle. “What are you waiting for?”

Severa snarls but turns into the path that Tharja guides them in. They weave between thick trunks like the ankles of giants when Tharja signals them to halt. She jabs to what looks like the stump of a massive tree, overgrown with moss and ferns, across a clearing from them. The stump towers over them, jagged with red bark peeling from its side. In the crevices, Severa sees dark gaps where someone could slip in and disappear.

Lon'qu shifts, pulling his gun from his holster. “Is this it?” He positions himself to jump out when Tharja opens the vehicle door and runs out. She picks up the tome as she exits, and in the glimpse Severa catches, she swears the gold binding shines as if new. Stepping forward into the clearing across from the hideout, Tharja flips through the book almost casually, sparks flickering about her fingers and over her hands. 

Cordelia and Lon'qu leap out of the car and race after her, only to stop at a ridge of ground that juts outside of the clearing. Severa stops the car and follows them, peering at them curiously as they stay still. The hairs on their arms are standing away from their skin.

Severa glances around. “What—”

Tharja reaches up, and a flock of crows soar up from the trees behind her like a tower of birds breaking into the sky. Even in the thin moonlight, the clouds above seem to darken and stir, turning purple like fresh, heavy bruises while the smell of ozone heightens in the air, alien and sharp at the same time. In the silence of the clearing, Tharja's voice carries through the air like a stone rippling through water. It's low and dangerous. “I'll show them wrath.”

Lon'qu turns to Severa, something like awe and fear in his eyes. “Close your eye and protect your ears when she strikes.” 

Severa's gaze catch on the strands of hair sticking up from his and Cordelia's heads as if being pulled by something invisible. She nods in acknowledgment, and Lon'qu turns back to watch.

Several member of the Grimleal pop out from the entrance at the front of the giant stump, guns aimed at Tharja, but their attention's caught above where sparks crackle in the sky.

Tharja's voice rings clearly in the night. “Die, now.”

She snaps her arm down, and Severa claps her hands over her ears and shuts her eye. She sees a flare of light behind her eyelid before she's thrown backwards, heat blasting the area in front of her as she gasps, breathing in what feels like an inferno. It does little to stop the flare of light that nearly blinds her or the thunder that rattles her body, disrupting her heartbeat into frightened, harried thumps. 

When she opens her eyes, smoke swirl from Tharja's fingertips, and the entrance to the Grimleal's hideout is in bright, white flames. She pulls her hands from her ears, and the fact that she can't hear anyone moving from the hideout is disconcerting in itself. The members trying to protect it are a worse sight. Guns are not the most effective weapons against lighting.

Tharja stalks ahead without waiting for them, and Lon'qu and Cordelia quickly follow. Severa stops to stare at the people groaning on the ground, blood leaking from the corners of their mouths—alive, but with strange red markings on their skin like tattoos of tree branches.

She asks her mother what they are, and Cordelia glances over the marks, lips tight. “Those are Lichtenberg figures. They occur when blood vessels burst due to an electric shock.”

That sounds horrible, though it's not as disturbing as the people who stay down and silent after the lightning attack. Tharja disappears into the hideout without waiting for them, and Lon'qu quickly follows after her. Severa gasps at the heat in the air when she slips past the doorway. 

She stands in a concrete hallway with paint peeling in gray splotches from its walls. Tharja storms down the stairs ahead of her and continues on the hallway, keeping the Mjölnir open in front of her. Severa moves to follow when Cordelia brushes past her, drawing a sidearm from her hip and signalling with a tilt of her head that she's going first. Lon'qu waits behind Severa, eyes sharp as he glances around, and the redhead girl understands that they mean to keep her between them at all times. She opens her mouth to protest, but stops when she sees the look in Cordelia's eyes. Her mother turns and presses forward on Tharja's heels, and Severa scoffs, following suit, a twisting sensation like rope knotting itself in her stomach when she remembers Noire's here. She doesn't think about if she's okay. She doesn't know what she'd do if she wasn't.

The hallway breaks into an aging brick passage with tin sheets arching above them in metal beams. Tharja turns a corner ahead of them, and Severa sees a flash of light and hears the thud of heavy weights dropping to the floor. Cordelia darts ahead with her sidepiece drawn while Lon'qu patiently peers into the corridors and rooms they leave behind. 

Severa rounds the corner and winces at the smell in corridor, darting around the groaning guards on the ground. “She didn't kill them?”

Cordelia glances back. “No, but when they recover, they'll wish she did.” 

“Why?”

Cordelia sighs, “People survive lightning strikes 90% of the time, but the damage it can do to your body and your brain....you would be lucky if you were the same person you were before.”

Severa ponders over her words and thinks that she would rather die than live as a husk of herself.

Tharja stops suddenly, and Severa nearly crashes into her back. The dark haired woman glances around the four-way corridor like a hound searching for a scent. 

Severa glances at the tome in her hand, smoke still wisping from its pages. “I thought only the descendants of the original wielders can use the holy weapons.”

Tharja casually brushes back her hair, exposing a mark near the back of her ear that looks remarkably like Noire's. 

Severa stares. “If you have God's blood in you too, how did you escape detection in Plegia?”

Tharja sneers, “The high priests were more concerned with their political posturing than any actual knowledge in their libraries' books. Had they peered into the obscure sections, they would have found a tome that detailed Tordo's mark in fine detail. As it were, I found it first, and I certainly did not let it stay there for others to see.” She peers down the halls again before spinning to the left and storming down it as if suddenly catching a hint of where Noire might be. 

Severa races after Tharja down a hallway made of lumpy gray stone. Her footsteps echo in the silence, and there's a creeping sensation on her neck like someone is watching her. A thick wooden door marks the end of the hallway like a guardian against their passage; Tharja barrels through the door as if it isn't there, slamming the cracking wood against the stone wall behind it. She disappears into the darkness of the room. Cordelia quickly sidles up to the open door and listens in, nodding at Lon'qu who mirrors her on the other side of the doorframe. They go into the room at the same time with their firearms up, and when Severa hears nothing, she tentatively goes in.

Lon'qu flicks on a nearby switch, illuminating a cool, spacious room filled with shelves of aging weapons—rusty swords, lances, helmets, and shields. It looks like an armoury for forgotten, long ago warriors. The three of them peer at the hoard, walking around a large, dusty table with a worn, faded map tacked to its surface. Cordelia snaps out of her fascination first and moves to the door at the end of the room to go after Tharja.

Severa's staring at the painting of a blade with a guard shaped like a golden chalice surrounding a tear when she stumbles into a scratched and worn spear. Her fingers touch the cool metal, and something hot and unpleasant buzzes into her skin, jolting through her like a current. She drops her hand, but the electric feeling still lingers in her system. She feels uneasy.

Lon'qu takes the spear from her and studies it. “The Gáe Bolg?” He glances around the weapons, shields, and pieces of armour in the storage room. “It looks like they were gathering ancient weaponry for some reason.” He moves towards the exit and gestures for Severa to follow, tucking the weapon under his arm.

“Wait, you're taking that with us?” Severa can't shake the sensation of a swarm of ants creeping through her veins like something's wrong. Then, she realizes what Lon'qu said and stops. “Wait, did you call that the Gáe Bolg? The cursed weapon that was lost to time?”

Lon'qu opens his mouth to answer when a howl is heard from the exit. He bolts towards the door with Severa behind him, racing past dirty stone walls until they turns a corner into a soiled cell room. In it, Tharja is kneeling on the ground, wrapped around a sobbing Noire who howls and buries one side of her face into her mother's shoulder, a bruise spreading down the other side.

Severa stands in the doorway, gaping and feeling a surge of something big and inexplicable in her like a crest of a tsunami, a mess of emotions too big to feel. She takes several shaking steps forward and reaches down to touch Noire's shoulder only to snap her hand away as if she would burn the sobbing girl. Noire whimpers at her mother's side, the bruise on her cheek dark and blooming, and Severa feels something wrench inside her chest at the sight. If only she hadn't brought them to her. 

She steps away as Tharja eases Noire to her feet and moves them towards the exit. Lon'qu and Cordelia scout ahead while Severa lags behind mother and daughter, feeling Noire get farther away like Severa's a dragging shadow on the injured girl's heels. 

The group bring Noire carefully through to the exit of the hideout, the corridors quiet with the downed guards no longer moving. Lon'qu reassures them that they don't have to worry about being attacked by anyone hiding in the surrounding rooms. He had already dispatched them. 

They climb back up the narrow stone stairs to the entrance and pop out of the hideout carved into the stump of a long-dead tree. Severa gasps at the rush of the forest air, feeling her brain spike into awareness as if she's able to finally think, to feel. Exhaustion drapes itself across her shoulders as if it means to bring her down.

Tharja still has her arm around Noire, who continue crying into her shoulder. Cordelia approaches the pair, staying a respectable distance away. She says, “She's safe now.”

Tharja shakes her head. “No, she won't be. Never again.” She turns around, spotting Severa and gesturing for the reluctant girl to come closer.

“You need to look after Robin. Above all else.” Tharja stares at Severa as if trying to make her promise with the weight of her gaze. “Otherwise, we'll all die.”

Dramatic, much? 

Tharja continues, “You don't know who she is, and you're in more danger if you do. I've sensed her identity the moment I arrived, which is why I spent so much time keeping her headaches at bay with my tonics.” Her face twists, and Severa's startled to see that there's a fear in her face that she didn't think Tharja was capable of. “All of you. Make sure the Grimleal never take her.”

Lon'qu eyes her. “She's involved with them?” He studies Tharja as she shakes her head. “She's necessary to them for some reason, but you won't tell us why.”

Severa rubs at her arms. “You know, I always thought you were after her, because you had a giant crush on her or something.”

Tharja stiffens, and in the glimpse of the moonlight, her cheeks darken.

Oh gods. 

Tharja snaps, “Honour my request or deny it. Don't waste my time with idle words.”

Cordelia steps up to them. “You have my promise that we will keep her safe as long as we are able.” 

Tharja turns away, shoulders sagging in relief. “Good.” She inhales and pushes Noire away just enough to meet her startled gaze. “I'm not good at being a mother. I never had one to teach me, but I will never let them have you. Not while I draw breath.” She takes her daughter's hand and turns it over to the red mark of Grima on her palm. “You will need training in your bloodline to combat the curse of a god. Only another god's power can fight it. I will teach you, but we can't stay here.” She glances away, silent. “I never wanted this for you.”

“Mother...” 

“Noire, I love you.” Tharja looks deeply uncomfortable. She steps away. “ Just don't expect me to say it often. Or ever again.” She turns and makes her way back to the car. “We need to leave before the Grimleal send people to find out what happened.”

Cordelia glances at the girls and Tharja. “Where will you go now? Going back to Ylisse with the unknown amount of corruption in the police force is not an option. It'll take us ages to sort out the department, and we can't guarantee your safety in town. Not with Noire being a deliberate target.”

Lon'qu adds, “And your daughter will never be safe with the mark of Grima upon her.”

“I know that!” Tharja snaps before she goes quiet. “We can't be in any one place for long.” 

Wait, what is she...?

Tharja moves towards Cordelia's jeep before slowing down and stopping in front of it. Her voice sounds tired, drained. “I need to ask a favour. Please.” 

Severa stares at Tharja while Lon'qu moves towards the vehicle. He climbs into the driver seat. “There's an Emblem safehouse not too far away where I can drop them off to get some rest and shelter for now.” He waits respectfully for Cordelia's permission, who grants it with a hesitant tilt of her head. He addresses her. “Get a subordinate you trust to meet and protect you. Call them directly on their cell phone and indicate that they are to travel here alone.” 

Cordelia nods and pulls out her phone while Severa runs in front of her mother's jeep, slapping her hands onto the car's hood. “You can't leave! We just got Noire back!”

Lon'qu stares blankly at her while Tharja gives her something like pity. Cordelia steps beside her and gently tries to pull her away, but Severa squares herself like she's about to face a charging bull. She bangs on the jeep, feeling the vibrations shoot up her arms. “No! You can't take her away.”

Cordelia touches Severa's shoulder as her daughter shakes her off. “If she stays here, how are we going to protect her from the Grimleal when we don't know who they are?”

Severa squeezes her eyes shut, feeling them start to burn. “No! We can hide them! You can do something so that—” Noire can have a normal life again. So, Severa can justify leaving Lucina to burn in Valm. “—they can come back!”

Cordelia's voice is quiet. “You know they can't.”

Severa turns her face away. Her arms tremble, and her throat squeezes tight. Her sob nearly wrecks her.

Cordelia pulls Severa away from the jeep to face a trembling Noire. “Say goodbye before they leave.”

Severa's eyes are on the leather of her boots, the forest ground of fallen leaves and twigs that look as dead as Severa's hopes. Her head moves slowly as she raises her gaze upwards as if there is a weight tied to her neck, as if she's struggling against an invisible resistance. She meets Noire's eyes, expecting to see accusation—the clear acknowledgment that Severa has failed her in every way.

Instead, Noire rushes forward and wraps her arms around her friend's neck. “Severa, you saved me! You saved me!”

“You idiot, I got you kidnapped in the first place!” Severa's swallowing back her tears, and she's holding onto her tightly as Noire rains kisses on her cheeks and forehead. “You need to go.” Her voice breaks. “You're not safe here.” 

Noire's not listening if the way she's burying her face into Severa's neck is any indication or the way she chants her name. The gratitude in Noire's voice nearly drowns Severa in her own guilt. “You're safe too! I'd never forgive myself if something were to happen to you! You kept your promise like I knew you would. You saved me in so many ways, Severa. You saved me! I'll never forget you!”

Severa chokes, pushing Noire towards the jeep as Tharja impatiently motions for her to get in, the Mjölnir tucked beneath her arm. She turns away and wipes at her face as Lon'qu start the engine, and she hears the cracking of twigs and leaves as the jeep makes its way out of the forest.

Noire waves to Severa as Lon'qu's car takes her and Tharja out of the trees and down the mountain road towards the north while the sun claws upwards at the edge of the horizon. “Thank you, Severa! Thank you for saving me!”

And like the idiot Severa is, all she can do is raise a hand in response as her friend disappears into the distance, a tiny speck waving until she's no longer in sight. 

In her heart, Severa knows. 

Noire is gone because of her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter is the last chapter. Thank you for holding onto this ride, guys. It's been a pleasure getting to write and interact with you.


	25. Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the aftermath of the night, Lucina realizes that neither home nor love can ever stay the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nature’s first green is gold,  
> Her hardest hue to hold.  
> Her early leaf’s a flower;  
> But only so an hour.  
> Then leaf subsides to leaf.  
> So Eden sank to grief,  
> So dawn goes down to day.  
> Nothing gold can stay. 
> 
> -Robert Frost

Frederick is the one who picks up Lucina, Chrom, and Libra at the ridge along Lovers' break. He had refused to tell them what happened over the phone.

Lucina rushes him before he finishes stepping out of his vehicle. “What happened to Severa? To Noire?”

Frederick lifts his brows in surprise and glances at Lucina's father, who draws up beside him. Chrom says, “I want to know too, and why you were rather taciturn.”

“With good reason.” Frederick glances around the woods as if there might be spies. “There was chaos in the sheriff department with several deputies attacking their fellow officers and abducting underaged civilians.” 

Lucina's throat tightens. “Noire and Severa.”

Frederick's gaze snaps to her, and after a moment, his expression softens. “We haven't been able to verify their whereabouts, and I was distrustful of our phone lines. I was not certain if they had been compromised.” 

Chrom asks, “What about the rest of the department?”

“There was an altercation at the Witch's Hut with Assistant Sheriff Faulkner and some of the other deputies. Gaius and that...bartender of his came to provide back up with Lieutanent Greenheart arriving shortly afterwards. They were able to neutralize the situation before Faulkner—”

“I would appreciate it if you would call my wife by her name,” Libra adds.

Frederick glances at him and nods. “My apologies. Cordelia left after she received a distress call from her daughter that they were surrounded by several deputies. Shortly afterwards, I arrived at Gaius' bar, and was told by him that Cordelia and Tharja returned to the Mayers' residence. When I arrived on the scene, I found De Rais dead in the kitchen and neither Cordelia nor the girls to be found. We would have searched for them, but we got alarming news from Valm, asking for back-up, as they were being attacked by arsonists.” He gazes at them, and his shoulders slump. “I...I was concerned that something terrible had happened to all of you, and it would be because I failed you in some way.”

Chrom places a hand on Frederick's shoulder. “Your fears were unfounded. As you can see, we came out safe.”

Frederick's expression flickers, something soft before it's gone. “Nevertheless, we will have to talk about future plans for back-up when conducting out of city interviews and about what happened to you in Valm.” He looks at Lucina. “And what happened to her eye.” 

Lucina blurts, “What happened to Severa? And Noire?”

Frederick murmurs, “We don't know.” 

Lucina's stomach sinks as Libra and Chrom fill Frederick in about the underground passageway. Libra brandishes the Grimleal tome they found, his face growing tight at the mention of Father Matthews and what was done to him.

Frederick peruses through the tome, his expression thoughtful. “So, they killed him and laid a trap. All to draw away a part of our forces while the Grimleal attacked Ylisse?” He shakes his head. “There was a riot at the sheriff's department as well, but Sergeant Vaike, Baines, and I were able to defuse the situation. The deputies responsible have been arrested and detained. However, I suspect they were only a distraction. When the fires in Valm started, we sent whomever we could spare and were removing some of the fallen officers when we noticed that they all had the mark of Grima on them.” 

Chrom swears. "So, it was all a coordinated Grimleal attack."

Frederick opens his mouth to respond when his phone rings. “Excuse me.” He glances at his screen, surprise lighting up his face before he nearly jams his phone onto his ear. “Cordelia? Where were you? You were unavailable and—” Frederick's eyes narrow. “Yes? I'm with Chrom, Lucina, and Libra.” There's silence before he sharply glances at them. “Don't move from that location. I'll meet you there.” 

Chrom asks, “Is she okay?”

“Yes, but she suspect that it's not safe to invite any other officers to her location. She's with her daughter and has called Cherche to come over but no one else.” Frederick gazes at Lucina. “Neither of them are badly harmed.”

Lucina lets out a breath, some of the stiffness starting to leave her shoulders. “Thank Naga.”

Frederick gestures for them to jump into his car. “We should go as quickly as possible.”

They cram in, and Frederick takes off so quickly, the trees blur by. Chrom's already on his phone, and his posture is stiff. He sits besides Frederick in the front, fidgeting as he waits for a response. Within a few seconds, he relaxes, and his voice rings with relief. “Robin, you're all right. Is Morgan with you?” His shoulders relax, and his gaze softens. He slips into that faraway, adoring look that Lucina often catches on his face whenever he talks to Robin, like a boy still in love. “You took him to Lissa's for the night? And your migraines got so bad, you couldn't move?”

Lucina taps his shoulder. “Is Mother okay?'

Chrom nods, still puzzled. “She managed to send out a warning via email and phone to all of the students' families. She told them to keep everyone inside before she took herself and Morgan to Aunt Lissa's.” He frowns. He pulls out the crinkled parchment from the library out of his pocket, scowling at Robin's name scrawled across the top. "There's something I need to talk to you about—"

His eyebrows shoot up before he turns and passes Lucina the phone. "She wants to see if you're okay first."

Lucina takes the phone. "Mother, I'm all right."

"Thank the gods, you're safe." Robin's voice cracks with worry. It sounds weak. "I just had a bad feeling like something was hurting you."

Lucina touches her temples where the headaches threatened to drive her mad from pain. "I had a migraine last night. You had one too?"

"Yes, I nearly collapsed at Aunt Lissa's. Luckily, she had one of Tharja's tonics on hand, and that seemed to abate the pain a little." There's a long pause. "Lucina, please promise that you'll stay safe."

"I will if you'll do the same until Father and I get back." Lucina pauses. "And Morgan too."

Robin's tone turns slightly amused. "I'll let him know that you thought of him." Her voice grows serious. "I love you, Lucina. Please hand me back to your father. It sounds like he has a lot of things we need to discuss."

Lucina hands the phone back after saying goodbye to Robin. Chrom thanks her and tucks himself forward, shoulders towards his ears as he relays something Lucina can't hear in a low murmur. She glances around at the trees arching skywards, anxiety roiling in her stomach as she wondered what happened to Severa and Noire.

Frederick catches her worried stare in the rearview mirror. He clears his throat. "Do you want to know why this area is called Lovers' Break?"

Lucina lets out a small smile, taut at the corners. "Trying to distract me with a story, Uncle Frederick?"

"If you'll allow me." Frederick glances at Lucina, receiving a nod in return. “Lovers' Break is named after two star-crossed lovers back when the town was founded. The blacksmith's daughter had fallen for a merchant's son, and despite their families' initial opposition, the pair had managed to convince them to give them their blessing in marriage. However, the son's family was involved in the ruling of the town and had many enemies. He was attacked by a gang of rivals and managed to fight them off, but in the scuffle, he had accidentally killed the son of the police chief who placed an immediate bounty on his head. He fled town and was unable to return for many years for fear of being slain on the spot. She waited for him to come back and for his name to be cleared, but died before that day came. He returned, many years later with grey in his beard and a family of his own, but he never forgot her. And in his final days, he left his family to climb the mountain's peak to pray and ask for forgiveness. He never made it to the top, having fallen down a ravine just short of it. The town named the place where they last said goodbye Lovers' Break in their memory.”

Lucina listens, and wonders why he told her such a sad story. “That's tragic, Uncle Frederick.” 

Frederick stares out onto the road. His knuckles tighten on the wheel. “That's how some things end, Lucina.” 

Lucina glances to her side and sees Severa's father studying the tome he brought from the library. "Did you find anything interesting?"

Libra's brows furrow. “It seems that the crusaders settled down in different regions, proliferating them with their offspring. Chon'sin was known as Isaac where Odo settled. Much of its population are descended from him.” He flips the page. “Ylisse has plenty of descendants from Heim. Plegia, Grima's bloodline.” 

Libra opens a page written with a faded, flowing script Lucina doesn't recognize. "This is an old language. It describes the gods themselves." He points out a word that's been partially smudged out, and yet, Lucina feels some sort of pull to it. "This would have been the god that bestowed their powers onto Odo. Their name appears to start with D-E-V, but the rest is lost. However, a description of them remains. They appear to be a demon hunter known for their impossible speed." He frowns. "I will need some time and resources to translate the rest, but, perhaps, this will give insight into how the holy weapons work as well as their origins."

Lucina nods and glances at her father, who has finished his phone call but stares off into the trees. Frederick keeps his staid gaze ahead while Libra gives himself to the book in his lap. None of them say a word until they reach their destination.

The crackles of leaves sound about them as they approach Southtown Crossing. They drive into the forest around trunks wider than their car, and stop when they spot a giant stump in the distance that's scarred with burn marks and gently smoking in the early morning light.

Frederick turns off the engine, and Lucina steps out. She's surprised when something cold touches her cheek. She glances up to see snowflakes drifting down, and shivers. 

Frederick exits the car. He huffs into his hands. “Winter's come early, and I don't know what it means."

He takes a step forward just as a bullet bites into the ground in front of him. Frederick throws himself backwards as Chrom yanks his gun out of his holster when a call from the trees catches their attention. A deputy with pink hair crouches on a branch above them. She tucks her gun into her holster on her hip and scales down the tree so quickly, it almost looks like she's falling gracefully, like she was meant to be airborne.

Frederick narrows his eyes when she lands and approaches while Chrom sighs and tucks his firearm back in. Lucina's father steps forward, hailing the newcomer. “Cherche, you scared us.”

“Sorry, Sheriff. I was put on lookout duty by Cordelia while she tended to her daughter's eye, and it was hard to tell who you were at first.” The woman speaks softly, demurely, but there's something sharp and hard in her eyes that reminds Lucina of Cordelia. “It seems that many of our forces can't be trusted.”

Lucina pushes past her startled father. “What happened to Severa's eye?”

Libra steps beside her. “I would like to know as well.”

Cherche gazes at them, her expression softening. “No permanent damage.” She glances away. “Physically, at least.”

Chrom looks around. “Are you the only other person here?'

Cherche nods and begins walking towards the clearing, gesturing for them to follow. “After the disaster in town, there was very few that the Assistant Sheriff trusted, especially ones that she would ask to stop by her own house and pick up spare sets of clothing.”

Libra stops. "Why was that necessary?"

"In the ensuing fights, some of Cordelia's and your daughter's clothing became...unsuitable to wear. We kept the clothing in plastic bags for the forensics team to examine later." She glances at their expressions, and quickly adds, "Oh, there was just too much blood to be comfortable wearing them. That's all."

Reassuring.

Libra clasps his hands together in prayer while Frederick gazes into the trees as if suspecting the shadows of conspiring against them. Chrom jabs Frederick's side and whispers something into his ear with the latter shaking his head.

Lucina feels sick at the secrecy. She picks up her stride and ends up alongside the woman in the lead. She asks, “How did you know Miss Faulkner?”

Cherche smiles. “We were in the military together. I was under Cordelia's command before I was recruited as a pilot on an experimental jet called the Minerva. I was the only one that could withstand the g force that Minerva generated without passing out.”

"G force?"

"The amount of gravitational or acceleration force on the body. 1 g is the normal amount that people feel when walking on the ground. Most people will pass out after five to ten seconds at 4 or 5 g. I could stay perfectly conscious at 6." She stares ahead. "People thought I was inhuman in my unit."

They pass by the stump of a large tree, and Lucina starts at the bodies clad in black lying just outside the entrance. “Are they dead?”

Frederick peers at them curiously. "Those are the garbs of Grimleal believers." He walks over and glances at the marks on their skin like tiny tree branches. "It looks like they have died from electrical shock somehow."

Libra glances around. "Where is my wife and my daughter?"

Cherche gestures around the truck to a police vehicle hidden from sight by the massive stump. "Over here."

Cordelia and Severa sit close together on the hood of Cherche's car. Upon seeing them approach, Cordelia gives her daughter a quick squeeze before getting up and greeting them. "Thank the gods that you're all safe."

Libra strides forward and reaches for his wife as Lucina races past both of them. She throws herself around Severa, who stirs slowly as if awakening from a deep sleep and places her hands hesitantly on Lucina's back. Lucina huffs, burying her face in Severa's neck and breathing her in. Her words choke in her throat, and to Lucina's surprise, she begins to cry, feeling her body shake as strangled sounds escape her. 

Severa's voice comes heavy. Tired. "I'm here."

Lucina inhales and pulls back. She cups Severa's cheeks, noting the bag under Severa's eye and the line of clean gauze on one side of her face.

Severa stares at her. “What happened to your eye?”

“What happened to yours?”

Severa starts, reaching up to touch the gauze. “Oh, there was a knife fight—”

“Knife fight!?” Lucina would like to know about any altercation involving knives that Severa's been in. "Are you okay?"

Severa blinks, frowning as if unable to answer the question. “What about you? Your left eye's changed.”

“We were exploring an underground library when it caught on fire—”

“Fire?”

Frederick interrupts them, his face grim. “Ladies, we need to focus on the matter at hand, which is figuring out what happened, and why several of our deputies are dead.” He cuts himself off when a blue jeep riddled with bullet holes comes out of the ferns and stops near them. Frederick reaches for his gun when Chrom stops him and steps forward. 

Lucina's father says, "Agent Jin. I was wondering where you were."

The driver exits from the jeep, dark-eyed and glowering. "You can call me Lon'qu. I was dropping off some witnesses at an Emblem safehouse." He takes in the cluster of people in front of him. "What's going on here?"

"We were discussing the events of last night." Cordelia states, “To start, my daughter and Noire Mayer were accosted at the latter's place of residence. Noire was forcibly taken by several deputies who worked under De Rais' command. De Rais, himself, assaulted Severa, and he was incapacitated—”

Frederick cuts in. “I saw the crime scene for myself. He was killed.”

“He's dead,” Severe repeats. Her voice is hollow, and she stares straight ahead. "Of course, he is." There's an odd blankness to her face at the news, her shoulders sagging as if there's too much weight on them. When Lucina looks into her eye, there's a feeling of fracturing there as if Severa's breaking into so many pieces, she may never be put back together again. 

Lon'qu steps up, growling. “I was forced to take his life when he resisted arrest.”

The undersheriff shakes his head. “No one will believe that a trained Emblem agent would make such a messy kill. It's amateur work for sure.” 

Severa trembles, and Cordelia steps beside her, gathering her into a hug. She says, "The deputies who died were part of the Grimleal. I have a list of several more that were killed as they resisted arrest and fled from me and Lon'qu as we pursued them. We also have the bodies of the Grimleal members here who had kidnapped Noire and kept her in isolation." 

Chrom frowns. "We saw those. How did they die?"

Cordelia says, "From electrical shock. We also had recovered one of the holy weapons, a tome which allowed Tharja to summon lightning at her command." 

Frederick raises an eyebrow. “The Grimleal members were assaulted by lightning from a book. From Tharja.”

Severa scoffs, eyes downcast. “Right?” Her tone is exhausted, defeated. “But I was there when it happened." 

Chrom clears his throat. "Where is Tharja now?"

Lon'qu shakes his head. "Safe. Somewhere where the Grimleal won't find her for a while along with her daughter."

"But what does mean for the rest of us?" Chrom's phone rings. He glances at the screen and hands it off to Frederick. "Could you answer that? It's someone from the Emblem."

Frederick glares at Chrom and snatches the phone. He walks away while holding it to his ear. "This is Undersheriff William speaking..."

They watch him stride away before turning back to the conversation. Chrom sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Well, this is a mess. My gods, the paperwork that Frederick will have to do for each of these incidents alone..."

Cherche pipes in, "Perhaps, we can get the Emblem's help in cleaning up the matter?" 

Lon'qu shakes his head. "The outer Emblem is all but a facade of what it stood for. Just like how the Grimleal has crept into your sheriff department, they have also slunk into ours. It's only the core, hidden from the bureaucracy and corruption, that would still be of help to you. Even then, they have to stay concealed from the spies in our own organization."

They glance up at Frederick who returns, his gait stiff. The lines of his eyes tighten. “The Emblem has received news that Officer De Rais is dead. They would like to call his assailant in for questioning and trial.”

Severa stares at the ground and starts to shake. Lucina glances at her, but Severa doesn't seem to notice that she's there. The one-eyed girl whispers, "What does that mean?"

"It means they'll kill you on the spot when you're away from our sight," Lon'qu growls. 

Lucina starts as does Chrom, Frederick, and Libra. They stare at Severa who shrivels from their gazes while Cordelia tightens her hold as if trying to shield her daughter from sight. 

Lucina leans forward and touches Severa's hand. It's cold. "You killed him?"

Cordelia glares at her, at all of them. "She had no choice. He attacked her."

"So, it was self-defence." Undersheriff William stands like a judge before her, tall and implacable. “But the Emblem may argue that the force you used was excessive. What compelled you to take De Rais's life?”

Severa stares at the ground. She croaks, “He was the one who took Owain and Noire away. He—” She meets Frederick's gaze and swallows. "He killed Owain."

Undersheriff William's expression doesn't change for a moment before his face slackens. He pales, and Frederick looks old—as if his eyes have aged thirty years from the last sentence alone. In them, there's a strange mote of relief as if a burden Frederick had been carrying had finally been put down. “Then, you have done me a favour I cannot repay.” 

Chrom looks sick. "De Rais was the one who killed Owain?" He staggers against a tree. "All this time, he was in my department..." He whips around and slams his fist into the thick trunk behind him. "Dammit! I would kill him twice if he was still alive." He turns around and moves towards Severa, taking her hands. "As adults and protectors, we failed you. You shouldn't have been the one to do that."

Severa looks at the sheriff's face before glancing up at Libra. She trembles. "I know you said never to take a life—"

Libra cuts in, his voice rough and tight. "Severa, I'm not ashamed of you. You did what you had to do to survive. Of everyone here, I would know what that means and the weight you carry on your soul because of it." He moves in to hug his daughter. "I forgive you for everything that happened tonight that you couldn't control, and I hope that one day, you forgive yourself."

Frederick shakes his head, seeming to recover slightly. "I...there's still the matter of the Emblem demanding her presence."

Lon'qu growls, “With the corruption in the Emblem, she'll never be guaranteed a fair trial.”

“Don't you think I know that?” Frederick snaps before composing himself. “My apologies. I know that to send her into the Emblem's arms to warrant a death sentence. However, to defy their orders mean to risk an investigation here and a hostile takeover of the sheriff's department if they think it's unsuitable to run.”

Chrom's expression darkens. "If there are as many Grimleal members in the Emblem as we think, that will most certainly happens." He glances at Severa, worry in his eyes. "So, what can we do to keep you safe?"

Lon'qu steps forward. "It may be better for everyone if she disappears. We can pretend that the Grimleal succeeded in taking her and Noire." 

Chrom frowns. "But the Grimleal members in the Emblem will know that we're lying for sure."

"But they can't contest us without revealing their hand and who they are. Besides..." Lon'qu steps near Severa. "Based on the scene with De Rais—” He eyes the sitting girl beside him. “—she's awoken her God's blood. She'll need a teacher to help her use her powers unless you want them to remain useless.” He tugs at the hem of one glove, pulling it down and exposing a birthmark like three interlocking triangles on the back of his hand. “I volunteer.”

Libra stares. "The mark of Odo." He glances at his wife. “Cordelia also has the same blood. She could teach her.”

Cordelia raises her brows in surprise. “I do?”

Lon'qu glances at her. “She clearly isn't aware of it, and Severa needs a master to teach her.”

Frederick narrows his eyes. “What do you stand to gain from it?”

Lon'qu growls, "A girl who isn't dead by the Grimleal's hand. Perhaps, that is your goal too." He crosses his arms. "You don't trust me, but what other choices do you have?"

Frederick frowns. He opens his mouth to object when his phone rings and he glances at the screen. He pales. "The Emblem have decided to send an investigation team anyway to Ylisse to find out the circumstances of De Rais' death themselves. They'll be here within hours."

Cordelia screws her eyes shut and gives Severa a long, hard squeeze. When she lets go and opens her eyes, there's a wet sheen to them. "I think Severa should leave." 

Severa starts. "Mom?"

Cordelia trembles and shakes her head. "You won't get a fair trial at the Emblem, and it's not safe for you to stay. I can't protect you when the Emblem gets here and combs through us. I can't stop them from taking you away. After what happened last night..." She eyes Lon'qu. "...I trust him to guard you well at the very least." She turns to the stoic agent. "Can I leave my daughter's safety to you? You can take my car as long as you get her away from here."

"I swear on my honour that I will guard her with my life." Lon'qu's face cracks for a slight second. "And I will keep my promise this time around." 

Cordelia nods. She turns to Severa and brave a smile, but it's forced and stiff and Cordelia seems to be breaking despite her words. "I love you, Severa. Wherever you go." 

Libra steps in and hugs his daughter from the other side. "I agree with your mother. It'd be selfish to keep you here when we can't keep you safe from harm. I want you to know that none of this is your fault, and your mother and I are very proud of you. We always were."

Severa stares at her hands. "I don't have a say, do I?" She stands up. "Then, let's go before I get you all in trouble."

Lucina asks, “Wait. When will she come back?” Her question is met with the sound of silence and guilty expressions.

Oh. 

Lon'qu moves to guide the girl with the slumping shoulders over to the jeep. “She needs to go before the Emblem brings their team here.”

Lucina's thoughts spin. Neither Frederick nor her father is stopping this madness. "Surely, there's something else we can do. Maybe we can hide her in a nearby city, or provide evidence that De Rais was wrong in attacking her."

Severa lifts her gaze. She looks so broken. “Let me go. It's the right thing to do.”

Lucina blinks back wetness in her eyes. "How can I?" She crushes Severa to her, breathing in her scent of wildflowers and feeling her breath catching against Lucina's stomach. “You don't know what you mean to me." 

"Or you to me." Severa turns her face to nuzzle into Lucina's neck. The adults around them avert their gazes to give the pair some privacy. "I never knew how much staying with you meant to me until I had to leave."

Lucina inhales sharply. She knows, despite her fighting, that Severa can't stay. "Don't worry. This will all be resolved soon, and the Grimleal will be defeated and Noire will come back and so will y—” Her voice cracks, and Lucina realizes that she's choking on her tears. Severa recognizes it too as she instinctively burrows herself again into the crook between Lucina's neck and shoulder, pulling the sobbing girl closer.

Severa whispers, “I've got you. You can cry when it's just me.” 

“It's not just you.” Lucina wipes at her eyes. “It's Noire and your parents and—” 

“I'll come back to you. I swear.” Severa pulls away, looking so tired and weary that it's like she's carrying enough weight in her soul for two lifetimes. 

“Please don't forget me wherever you go.”

“I couldn't forget someone like you if I tried. You'll be in my memories until the day I die.” 

"And you in mine." 

Severa nods. She turns and heads towards the car.

Lucina can't stop herself. She blurts, “Severa, I love you.”

Severa looks back and smiles. It's the saddest one Lucina has ever seen. “Bye, Lucina.” She gets into Cordelia's jeep with Lon'qu at the driver's seat, and Severa's eyes never leaves hers, even when the engine starts and they pull away into the woods.

Lucina runs after the car, unable to halt herself. No one else moves to block her way, and Lucina chases after the vehicle as it slowly makes its way around the thick trunks that surround them. She bursts onto the road and heaves, the bite of winter's chill sinking into her lungs as she watches Cordelia's jeep drive away.

She watches as the vehicle glides up the mountain trail, turning into the road that leads to Lovers' Break until it dies away from view. 

And in her heart, Lucina says goodbye to Severa.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a crazy ride from start to finish, and I'd like to thank all of you readers for staying with me during its duration. There will be a sequel that will probably arrive at the start of November, as I have a couple of trips planned in October. Once again, thank you for coming onto this journey of Lucina and Severa with me. See you next story.


End file.
